


Memoriam, the Crucible

by orphan_account



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, Batfamily (DCU), Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Drug Dealing, Family Dynamics, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Jason Todd-centric, Lazarus Pit, Major Character Undeath, Memories, Memory Loss, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:27:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23919697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: What if the al-Ghul's never found Jason after he came back to bring him to the Lazarus Pit? Would Bruce have found him? Would someone else? And would the Pit be inevitable, or could he get that missing piece back some other way?In which a fifteen year old Jason Todd dismantles a drug ring in Gotham while trying to figure out who, exactly, he was before he woke up in that graveyard.
Comments: 59
Kudos: 400





	1. 7x2

**Author's Note:**

> please regard the au tag, because this is an au, and also because i'm still relatively new to the batfam fandom, and my knowledge of canon is sorta...hazy. in my defense, i get the impression dc's knowledge of canon is sorta hazy. so enjoy the story and thanks!

A box. Seven by two and six feet under.

It's not his oldest memory. Or at least, he doesn't think it is. He can't seem to get a decent grasp on any of the others, but he is distantly aware of them. Watching him from the ether. Laying in wait. He can feel their presence like another person hovering just over his shoulder, but no matter how quickly he turns, that's where they remain. Just over his shoulder, out of view.

The box is different.

An invisible weight on his shoulders, but he appreciates the solidity of it. Of a firm memory.

Whenever he feels himself slipping he just has to think of a box, seven by two and six feet under. It's something strong, something he doesn't have to doubt. As solid as the earth he had to dig his way out from under. Solid like the slab of granite that marked the spot where he was buried.

He was buried.

That much he knows for certain, because the process of digging himself out is half of what makes the box so solid. Blood under his fingernails from trying to scratch away at the wood. Cinder in his lungs when he gasped for air and inhaled only more dirt. That flood of relief when he took in the first breath of nighttime air.

And he can't explain it. Waking up in a graveyard.

As far as he knows, people only end up in boxes in graveyards when they die. Somewhere in the fog, he thinks maybe there was a moment where he thought he was dying. It feels like iron and flame. But he takes in a breath and he can feel his chest inflate, and he wiggles his toes and he can feel the dirt press against his bare feet. And he is relatively certain he is not dead.

The slab is the only reason he knows he has a name. It read simply:

_'Jason Todd. Ally & Friend.'_

Four simple words, but they don't feel simple. They feel like water. Beyond that, they don't mean anything to him. But they mark the place where he awoke, which means that they must mark him.

"Jason Todd," he'll repeat to himself, just to see how it sounds. Another weight he can carry with him, even if the words never quite feel right on his tongue. "Ally and Friend."

Ally and friend to who is one of the memories he can't get hold of, but it's not slippery like the ether. It's just that when he thinks too hard about it, it aches. A pain that's solid but not like the dirt.

On the days where he's less than relatively certain that he is not dead, he often catches himself seeking it out. Like poking at a bruise to see if it still hurts, and then poking it again an instant later because it does. It's still yet to help him remember, but it's grounding, even when the box fails.


	2. Headlights

The next thing he knows after the graveyard is a white room.

Actually, it's a pair of yellow headlights and the sound of tires screeching against asphalt. He stumbled his way out of the cemetery in the dark with no clue as to where he was going, just as long as it was away. That appreciation for the box only came after he'd left it behind him. He made it as far as the middle of the street somewhere before collapsing on his knees.

He must've been injured before they put him in the box. His bones feel heavy, and he doesn't have a firm comparison, but he thinks that's wrong, they're not supposed to be that way.

He gets back up and manages another few steps before he's caught in the headlights and he drops again. The car doesn't hit him, it skids to a halt.

A woman with a kind face got out, speaking words of concern and then reassurance, and put him in her backseat. There he promptly feel asleep. He's sure he slept for a long time in the ground but for some reason he's still tired.

He woke up in the white room.

He wakes up, like the first time, completely alone. Unsure exactly how long he slept for, but his limbs carry the heavy of a long sleep. Only this time he's in a bed instead of the ground, and it's glaringly bright instead of pitch dark. Too loud instead of too quiet. Machines buzz and there's voices in the hallway. And the curtain on the window is pulled shut so he can't tell where or even when he is.

There's no dirt to dig his way out from under this time. Just a thin, scratchy blanket. White, like everything else, and somehow more oppressive than the soil. And the myriad of wires and leads taped to his skin. The machine next to him beats with his heart, or at least he thinks that's what it does. He can't figure out what the numbers and figures on the screen mean.

It's when he tears off the wires that the line on the screen goes flat, and the steady beeping becomes one long noise. The woman in blue appears then, looking frantic. Shortly after her comes the woman in the white coat, looking upset.

Both of them seem somehow shocked to see him. Another man in a white coat arrives.

The white coats are asking him questions and the woman in blue reattaches the wires that he wanted off. They're telling him something but, much like their beeping and trilling machines, he only registers their words as ambient noise.

They take turns asking him questions. A majority of which he does not have the answer for. They want to know how he was hurt and who hurt him and where he came from. They want to know if he has a family they can contact for him. They want to know his medical history and how he's feeling and how he was hurt. They already asked that one.

The woman in blue asks him to rate his pain on a scale from one to ten, and he can't do it because he doesn't have a basis of comparison. He's always felt this way, hasn't he? He settles for a five, and she doesn't look like she believes him but she doesn't ask again.

They ask him his name.

It's the only thing he has that he can be sure is real and his, and so he keeps it for himself. Holds onto it tightly like it's something precious, because for all he knows it is. And so the white coats take to calling him John.

In a way, he sort of likes it when they call him John. The wrongness of it helps assert that Jason Todd is who he is.

The woman in blue doesn't like calling him John. She says it's an old man's name. A young boy should be called something nicer than John. So she tries a different name every time she sees him. He's Arthur one morning, and Jimmy that afternoon, and none of them feel right because none of them are right, and she keeps trying.

He doesn't like her calling him any of these names. Her affection feels like something foreign, and he can't figure out where he earned it. He doesn't know her--he's only confident of this because she doesn't know him--and she doesn't owe him any kindness.

As soon as he's able, he leaves the white room. He doesn't say anything to the white coats. They don't want him to leave until he can remember a family; he suspects this has less to do with caring for him, and more to do with the subject of billing. So he slips out in the middle of the night, when he knows they won't notice.

The woman in blue catches him before he can even leave his room. She offers him a pair of shoes, and some jeans to replace to light blue pants the white coats had given him. A bright red hoodie that's a size too big for him.

It was her son's, she explains even when he doesn't ask. Then she wants to know if he has someplace safe to go when he leaves.

He has the distinct impression that if he says no she'll offer him her roof, too. He lies.

He doesn't completely trust her, but over the past few weeks spent in this place he has come to like her. Her voice is sweet and she doesn't ask him questions that he doesn't want to answer like the white coats do. Instead she tells him about her family, and reads him books. (The one she's been reading to him this week, _The Call of the Wild,_ is tucked away in the hoodie pocket.) One of the white coats mentions that she read him books while he was sleeping, too.

Even despite all this, lying to her comes easy. Maybe that's what he was before, a liar.

She doesn't look like she believes him, but she doesn't ask again.

xXx

He spends a lot of time alone, after the white room and the box.

He works jobs for people who don't mind that he doesn't have a name, so he can pay rent at a place that doesn't mind that he can't be any older than sixteen. Truth be told, he doesn't know how old he is. That's just what the old woman down the hall says, and he shrugs and decides he believes her. His age isn't a memory that weighs on him like the others. He has a feeling he's always been too old for his age anyway.

In his free time, he reads books.

They won't let him take any books out with him at the public library, on account of him not being willing to give them a name. But he sits on the floor there for hours and pours through whatever book catches his eye.

Some of them feel familiar. Like he's read them before, some of them more than once. When he finds them he'll catch himself pulling out the little lined paper in the envelope inside the cover, where the names of everyone who's checked the book out before are scrawled in pencil, pouring it over for his own name. He can never seem to find it.

For some reason, he can't seem to finish the book from the woman in blue.

xXx

He's reading the news in the paper.

It's not his paper, it belongs to the old woman from down the hall. Sometimes he fixes things like the window or the sink for her. Their landlord won't hire a handyman to do it, and he's discovered he's good at fixing things. He fixes things for most of the other residents in the building, but most of them he charges.

For her, he offers to do it for free. He doesn't think she has much in the first place and besides, she always feeds him whenever he comes over, and that's basically payment.

But she won't hear of it, and so she never lets him leave emptyhanded. A Tupperware container of something to eat for dinner, a pair of boots that were her grandson's until he outgrew them, a knitted blanket. Today, all she had was the paper. He accepted it, he would've accepted nothing only she insisted.

Anyway, he's sitting out on the fire escape, catching the last of the dying sunlight and reading the news in the paper.

He doesn't like the newspaper the way he likes the books. For one thing, it's boring. Harder to follow.

For another, it talks about people and places and things that he thinks he's supposed to know, but he doesn't. It talks about characters like Scarecrow or Commissioner Gordon like those names already mean something, and he's just supposed to understand who they are by reading them. It lists locations as if he's already been to them, and he doesn't like it, because maybe he _has_.

There's an article about a figure called the Batman stopping a bank heist someplace in Gotham and as much as he tries to read it he can't.

He can't because there's this photograph accompanying it, and his eyes keep ignoring the words in favor of that. It's grainy and blurry and the figure it was meant to capture is too far away to be very visible. And still he can't stop looking at it.

He thinks...he thinks he's met him before. No, he thinks maybe he knew him.

The mask looks familiar, even in the poor image quality of a newspaper photograph. More than familiar, it aches, in a way he knows he's felt before. It aches like the words he revisits whenever the box fails to ground him. It aches like a slab of granite.

He crumbles it up and goes to throw it away when something stops him.

He stuffs it in his hoodie pocket and climbs back inside.

xXx

The past few weeks--or maybe months, he doesn't count the days and he doesn't own a calendar--he's worked a lot of odd jobs. Mostly though, he works in construction.

He takes the bus up to a moderately nicer part of the city, where they pay him cash under the table. Give him a sledgehammer and tell him to take the walls down. He does this with a crew of other people, some of them probably about his age, some of them older.

They talk a lot. Sharing stories about families and bouncing jokes back and forth. Sometimes they argue about sports or the news. Through all of it, he just works quietly. He doesn't have stories to share, about a family or anything else. He doesn't know the names of the sports teams. He does know how to swing a hammer.

He works until he doesn't and he takes the bus back, except when he doesn't.

Sometimes he prefers to walk.

Every now and then he'll walk past someplace that lights a spark of familiarity, and he'll make an excuse to hover there, trying to remember. He never can remember, but he's able to piece together an image of what he was before the box, based off the places he thinks he knows.

An alleyway. A liquor store; he knows he wasn't old enough to go in before, because he's not old enough to go in now, but the man behind the counter doesn't seem to care. A gas station on the corner. He goes in one night and the woman behind the register asks if she knows him, he seems so familiar, and did he used to buy scratchers or cigarettes or something for his dad? He never goes back, in case he sees her again.

He spares a glance down one such alleyway on one such night, and gets more than he bargained for. It's not the empty alley he was expecting, there's three people there.

Two adults and a kid, at least two or three years younger than him. One of the adults has the kid pressed against the wall, the other one's saying something about their money, and the thing is, it's not really his business. It's not smart to kill someone who owes you money anyway, you'll never get the money then, so the kid'll probably be fine in the long run...

"Hey!" he finds himself shouting anyway, his feet already taking him into the alley.

He doesn't remember ever being in a fight before, but he's confident he must have now. Dodging the first blow is too easy, but that could just be luck. The way he sidesteps the next one and slams a man almost twice his size into the brick wall next to them doesn't feel like luck. The hand on the other man's neck and bicep, so he can get his leg around the man's ankle and kick his feet out from under him doesn't feel like luck.

It feels practiced.

He stands still a second too long wondering where he could've learned that, and the second man catches him in the jaw with a fist. He stumbles a step sideways with the force of the blow, trips over the man he put on the ground and lands hard on his back.

One of them starts towards him, reaching for his pocket as he steps. He doesn't wait to find out what sort of weapon the man's going for. From his place on the ground he can grab the guy's left ankle, with a foot on his left hip. He hooks a foot around the guy's right calf and pushes, a resounding _thump_ as the man hits the concrete.

When he's got the man's ankle in both hands he traps the leg with his. In one swift motion he breaks the guy's leg. The sound of the crack alone almost makes him gag.

The second man drags him away with a pair of large hand sunder his armpits and throw him into the side of a dumpster. The man on the ground spits and says, "Little fucker broke my fucking leg!"

"I'm about to break a lot more," his friend says, picking a glass bottle up off the ground and smashing it against the wall.

The man swings the bottle at him and he ducks, landing one punch to the man's stomach, and then two. He catches the man's wrist the next time the bottle come towards him and twists until the guy drops it, more glass shattering on the ground.

The man punches him in the nose with his other hand, and he reels back, something warm trickling down over his lip. He puts a hand up to his nose and it comes away bloody, and that's what happens when you get punched in the nose, but for some reason he just stares and stares at it and can't look away.

He was, up until now, not totally convinced he had blood. He was sure that, if he were to take a scalpel to his skin, the only thing that would spill out would be the dirt. That's what he's made of, after all.

"Kids these days take one taekwondo class and think they're the fucking Batman," the first man says as he sits up, reaching for his pocket once more and producing a small gun.

He waits for the spark of fear to run down his spine, but it doesn't come. The man pulls the trigger, and he dodges, and a bullet buries itself in the dumpster walls instead of his skin. Another grazes his shoulder as he's too slow to dodge it.

And the logical side of his brain tells him that he should leave before he gets himself shot, but he doesn't leave. Instead, he sprints towards the gun. Kicks it out of the man's hand and then slams a foot into his face for good measure.

The other man comes up behind him and hooks an arm around his throat. A hand comes up to his face, large enough to cover his mouth and his nose. He can feel the fingernails digging into his cheek and he can't breath, can't breath.

He thrashes against the hold and the man only tightens his grip. So he bites the man's hand. Clenches his jaw down on the flesh of his palm until he tastes blood, and even then he doesn't let go. The man curses in his ear and yanks his hand away, leaving a chunk of skin behind between his teeth. The man releases his grip on his throat and pushes him away with a shout.

When the man's distracted, he takes his chance to pick a shard of glass up off the ground. Slams a foot into the back of the man's knee, bringing him down to the ground.

And then he has a fist in the man's hair, keeping him in place, and the shard of glass pressed into his neck. And he has every intention of cutting the man's throat but instead he freezes there. Wills himself to move but he can't.

He's caught in the headlights. He can run or he can collapse but he can't stay here.

There's a soft thump behind him, before he can decide, and he jerks around to see what's there. A figure in black just landed in the alleyway, he must've jumped down from the fire escapes. And he's not the Batman, he's smaller and lines of blue decorate his suit, but he's familiar in the same way the newspaper photograph is.

He drops the shard of glass to the ground and runs.


	3. Gravity Trick

"I mean, those guys were serious douchebags...But there were three broken bones, and two cracked ribs between them."

Dick's standing in the center of the Batcave, in what started as a report of tonight's patrol, but quickly became a tangent about that kid from the alley.

He knows kids from Gotham have to be tough, especially in that part of the city. And he took a look at the bullet holes in the dumpster and the shattered beer bottle and knew the kid was fighting for his life. It's not that part that's bothering him--Well, the thought of a kid that age having to fight for his life _does_ bother him, of course it does, but that's a different sort of bothered.

What bothers him about this kid is the efficiency of it.

He's not just tough. Those guys were easily twice his size, and they didn't just lose the fight, they super lost. A broken leg, wrist, fractured jaw, and two cracked ribs between them.

A shard of glass to the carotid artery is a good way to kill a man, too. Dick's not so sure the kid would've followed through, even if he hadn't shown up, but that's not the point. Not really.

Whoever this kid is, he's methodical. Trained.

"And he was alone?" Bruce asks with a small frown.

A small frown is, though, by Bruce standards not very telling. Dick shrugs, "Yeah."

"What was their beef with a kid?"

"They said he jumped them."

"You believe that?" He arches one, skeptical eyebrow.

To a degree, yeah he does. But in a much more real sense, absolutely not.

He's willing to believe they don't know him, in that much they seemed genuine. They also were both armed, with records for drug dealing, assault, and one count of murder. So what Dick doesn't buy is that the attack was totally unprovoked. Fortunately, it doesn't seem much like the GCPD buy it either.

"Well, I'd love to hear his side of the story," Dick answers, crossing his arms.

Finding him will be tough, seeing as it was too dark and he didn't stick around long enough for Dick to see much of his face. But they've found people before with less. Maybe.

xXx

He makes it back to the place he's been staying and promptly collapses onto the floor.

He's not hurt that bad. The bullet really only grazed him, the blood dripping down his arm makes it look worse than it is. He's confident that, although he can't remember it, he's had worse. It's just that he's tired. And the floor is where he usually sleeps anyway. Sure, it's a lot closer to his front door than the heap of blankets in the far corner where he generally sleeps, but floor is floor.

The day has been long and this will do.

He wakes up, as he always does, alone. Feeling as though he's slept, but not feeling particularly rested.

He can feel dried blood caked to his top lip and his nostrils. Enough of it that's difficult to breath properly through his nose. The bullet wound on his shoulder seems to have stopped bleeding though, even if his skin does stick to the floor uncomfortably when he shifts to get up.

He walks to the bathroom and turns the tap on the sink, letting it run for a few seconds until the water warms up. While he waits, his eyes drift up towards the mirror.

The bruise spreads out from nose and collects just underneath his eyes. He's not sure, but he thinks his nose has gone slightly crooked. Broken, his brain supplies. He can't be bothered that it hurts. He's had much worse, hasn't he? And when he washes away the caked blood he can still breath, so the only problem he foresees is that the other guys at work might ask him more questions now.

The three distinct bruises on his cheek in the shape of fingertips won't help much.

He doesn't want their questions or their attention. He's been drifting through his days as a ghost, and there's a certain feeling to it that tells him maybe that's how he's supposed to be. A ghost.

He splashes some warm water onto the wound on his shoulder, too. But it stings more than it helps, and the water has the effect of washing the dried blood away so that it starts to bleed fresh again so he stops.

Switches the tap back off. Heads back out of the bathroom.

He climbs out onto the fire escape, where the sun has only just begun to rise, and he reads another book. One that the old woman from down the hall gave him a few days ago, after she caught him reading _The Call of the Wild._ "It's by the same author," she'd said. "A fine man, that one. I think you'll enjoy it. I liked to read too, when I was your age..."

He doesn't enjoy it.

It's a fine book. A good book. Only he doesn't like it.

He closes the book and instead looks out at the cityscape below him. He's more than willing to let the alleyway from last night subside into the fog where the rest of his memories hide from him, but try as he might, his thoughts keep coming back to it.

Looking down at the morning traffic picking up below, he reminds himself of the things he knows to be true.

His name is Jason Todd. _(Ally & Friend.)_

He is alive. (He thinks he was not at some point.)

He woke up in a box. He woke up in a white room.

He is always alone. (Like ghosts should be.)

These he knows.

And now; He's a fighter.

He doesn't like the knowledge of being a fighter. It comes with a sensation of remembering without bringing any actual memories with it. He's been fighting, he thinks, for a very long time. Is that how he wound up in the box in the first place?

No, he's not supposed to ask about the box.

It's supposed to be concrete. His one solid memory. If he starts to shroud it in questions it'll become just like everything else.

"Jason Todd," he says, rolling the words around on his tongue. "Ally & Friend."

He thinks about going back. To the box.

He wouldn't know where to look for it. He has to know who Jason Todd is.

The search takes him back to the library. Not for books this time, but for webpages and old news articles or blog posts.

He sits down at the desk and he's not certain what questions he's meant to be asking, so he just types the name into the search bar. It feels sort of stupid, just searching a name. But pages pop up providing answers, and from there he can figure out the questions.

The first three suggestions are news articles discussing the details of what was apparently his death. Which tells him that either he actually did die, or someone has been faking his death without discussing it with him beforehand. The first, remarkably, seems more likely. Not one article talks about how he can be back, though.

He skims the headlines. **Street Orphan Turned Billionaire's Son Announced Dead at Age 14** , one reads. **Gotham Mourns the Loss of Jason Todd in Tragic Driving Accident** , shouts another. And, **Business Mogul Bruce Wayne Declines Statement on Son's Death.**

The dates on the articles line up with the numbers engraved into the slab he found above the box, advertising the year he died. So he has to ask how long he stayed that way for, how long he was really asleep in the white room. Because it's two whole years before the date on the one newspaper he owns.

He doesn't want to ask how long he was dead, or how long he slept in the white room. He has enough missing time to begin with.

He scrolls past all three articles without clicking on any of them. He doesn't want to know about how he died and he doesn't want to learn about who Jason Todd is from people who did not know him.

The first four pages of suggestions that he scrolls past are different articles detailing the events and aftermath of his death--they held a vigil outside a place called Crime Alley, they asked Bruce Wayne for a statement, they asked Dick Grayson for a statement and were subsequently punched by Dick Grayson, they put a out a call for safer driving, he was so young it's just so tragic--he starts to lose hope of finding anything meaningful.

He's not wholly convinced the articles even know what they're talking about.

They keep saying he was hit by a car. He doesn't have the memory to dispute it but it feels... _off_. He remembers a car, headlights, white room. But all that was after the box, and so after he died.

When he tries to remember dying, he can almost taste copper, like blood. He hears a laugh rattle off the back of his skull and stops trying to remember.

Maybe it was a car. It's not like he would know.

When he gets further back he finds a couple of blog posts talking about some gala. At which Jason Todd had, evidently, caused some major scene by shouting at Bruce Wayne before storming off. They speculate about what the argument was about, and reading it just makes him mad. He scrolls past it.

The older articles announce, in varying tones of intrigue or disapproval or approval, that Bruce Wayne has adopted a second child, one Jason Todd. One claims to have the 'exclusive on Todd's life before, a rags to riches story.'

He clicks the link.

In short, Jason Todd hails from a family of ghosts.

His family are all dead--or maybe they're not. He's supposed to be dead, and here he is in a library in the Gotham slums. He won't speculate that he's the only one. Just because of the logic, not because he thinks it might be nice to not be alone. He's doing just fine as a ghost, even if the ache in his shoulder tells him otherwise.

His mother's name was Catherine. He looks at the photograph they've provided of her, and for a fleeting instant he feels guilty for not remembering.

His father's name was Willis. He looks at the photograph they've provided of him and waits to feel the same guilt but it doesn't come.

His father is only presumed dead, the article says. His mother was an addict, the article says.

It goes on to talk about Bruce Wayne, who apparently also hails from a family of ghosts. Jason Todd was a charity case to him, the article doesn't outright say, but it's implied.

"Bruce Wayne," Jason mumbles, curious how the name sounds out loud. Hearing it doesn't teach him anything and he sighs, rocks back in the chair and tells himself, "It doesn't matter."

None of it matters.

He hasn't found a single thing that tells him anything about Jason Todd that he didn't already know. That he's alone. That he's a fighter. That he's a ghost.

Bruce Wayne might have adopted him, but that doesn't make them a family. It was only a little over a year before the date of his death. It's possible Jason Todd never meant a thing to Bruce Wayne.

It's possible, a nagging voice suggests, that he meant a whole world to Bruce Wayne.

It doesn't matter.

It shouldn't matter. He's dead. He was hit by a car _no he wasn't_ and they buried him. And he dug his way out of that box all by himself, and no one's come looking for him _how would they know to look at all, let alone where._ It shouldn't matter.

The place he stays in isn't much, but he doesn't have anything to compare it to, and he keeps it on his own. He fixes the leak in his own ceiling just as well as he fixes the leak for the old woman down the hall. And he does well enough to eat at least two meals on most days which is something that, if the article is to be believed, can't be said for the living Jason Todd.

He spends another minute staring at the photographs on the screen. If nothing else, he can remember their faces. Catherine and Willis Todd, and Bruce Wayne.

It's better, he decides, to be a ghost.

They float, not because of any trick of gravity or magic, but simply because they don't have the weight of their life to hold them down. It doesn't matter what life Jason Todd had before if he's dead along with everyone else in it.

xXx

The realization that Jason Todd doesn't matter doesn't change much.

He gets a new construction job in a different part of town, and neither the thugs nor the man who is not Batman ever seem to come looking for him. Neither do any of the ghosts he's supposedly connected to. (Maybe they're not ghosts, maybe they're just dead.)

But he continues to float through the world without forming a single tether, and he tells himself that it's freeing. That no one actually cares enough about him to ask about the bruising on his face, or the to notice the way he favors his right shoulder now over the left. He tells himself being alone is a comfort because it's on the list of things he can know to be true.

He doesn't seek out the fights, but it begins to feel like they seek him.

The man who slams him into a wall at the bus stop one week and demands whatever money he has, as if someone like him has much to give anyway. Another alleyway fight he steps into before he can think to stop himself.

He wins them both, although he walks away from the second with a fresh new cut dripping blood into his eye from his brow.

It's about a week since the first alleyway incident before his walk takes him back to that block. He recognizes one of the men, although the other doesn't seem to be there, before the man recognizes him.

There are about three other people with him, smoking cigarettes and juggling conversation. A woman with nicotine teeth and two more men, one younger, one a moderately older but he dresses young.

He thinks he should avoid a confrontation with them.

It's too late to turn around, though, when the familiar one points him out, saying, "That's the little shit that broke Jimmy's leg."

Just because he doesn't seek out the fights doesn't mean he shies away from them.

He's doing pretty well, he thinks, considering he's outnumbered and hasn't found the time to eat since breakfast this morning. There's blood on his knuckles and only some of it is his, and the familiar man is on the ground.

And then the moderately older man is slamming him back into the wall, and he feels his skull crack against the brick there, and a pair of brass knuckles crash against his stomach. One, two, three times and then the moderately older man aims for his jaw instead. It's difficult to break free from his grip, when the blows come so fast.

There's blood in his eyes again, but off to side he catches movement. A fifth person stepping out from around the corner with a call of "Hang on!" and then the moderately older man is dropping him and he's sliding down the wall to the ground with a thump and a cough.

He's half expecting the Batman or the man who is not Batman or some other popular Gotham figure for good, but when he turns to see who stopped them it's just another man. Only remarkable because of how unremarkable he is; he's not tall or short, skinny or fat, and he dresses in a ratty old flannel and jeans. And he looks adjacent to being familiar.

"Ain't you Cathy's boy?" The man asks.

"What'd you just say?"

He wipes some of the blood out of his eye with the back of his hand, shooting a confused look up at the man. Cathy...as in Catherine? Does he know this man?

"I'll be damned," the moderately older man says, stepping away from him. Somewhat apologetic, but mostly shocked. "I heard you were dead. If I'da recognized you..."

He pushes himself to his feet.

It takes more effort than he wants to admit, and he would much rather remain on the ground for awhile longer. But he doesn't know how these people know them, doesn't know how long he has before this turns back into a fight. He won't let them see that he's hurt if he can help it.

He turns to the unremarkable man. Says, "Catherine?"

"Catherine, Cathy. I guess you'd've just known her as Mom," the man says with a shrug and a small laugh. "You probably don't remember me. Damn, you got tall."

There's something telling him to get away from here as fast as he can.

Which could either be a siren call from the ether, telling him he's had past experiences with these people and not to trust them. Or it could be because four of them just tried to make sure he was dead again, and he blinks more blood out of his eye, and heavily considers turning around and running far away.

Instead, he takes a step closer to the man. Asks, "How did you know my mom?"


	4. Demolition Crew

"How did I know her? I'm her brother," the man says, slightly amused. Like the answer's obvious. He adds with a grin, "You're my nephew, kid."

He thought if he had any family left, finding them would be something of a relief. And although the explanation sparks a certain curiosity--if he has a living relative, maybe they'll have the answers the internet can't give him--he isn't relieved. He's skeptical, suspicious even, and he can't totally explain it.

It's not that he thinks this man is lying to him.

Why would he have reason to? And besides, when he compares the man's features to the photograph of Catherine Todd, he can see a relation. They share the same reddish blonde hair, and small ears. Still, something about it doesn't make sense.

If Jason Todd had an uncle, why was he adopted by Bruce Wayne?

He must take to long to answer, because the man tilts his a bit and asks lightly, "Jeez, you really don't remember me?"

It's not personal. He doesn't remember anyone.

But he's not over eager to give that information up just yet. Even with the prospect of family, that faint itch to run far away from here hasn't dissipated. Maybe it's just the adrenaline from the fight. Maybe he can't trust this man. And he doesn't have any specific memories to back this up, but he knows definitively, trusting the wrong people can be very, very dangerous.

"I, uh..." he starts, trying to conjure a decent excuse to have forgotten an entire relative.

"Don't sweat it," the man says dismissively. Apparently not all that offended at being totally forgotten. "You were real little when we met."

"It's a sweet family reunion, Johnson," the man he's fought once before says. Getting up off the floor he put him on. "But your little nephew over there busted Jimmy's leg, and almost slit my fucking throat."

His prospective uncle, apparently Johnson, raises an eyebrow. Looks at him with a new level of intrigue, one that makes him more than a little uncomfortable.

But where his instinct is to shrink away from the look, he stands defiantly tall, feet rooted to the ground when they would much rather be running. Johnson asks, "What'd you go and do a thing like that for, Jason?"

While he's able to assume the confident posture, his words fail him under the scrutiny. This is the longest conversation he can ever remember having since the white room, and the men in white coats always did most of the talking back then.

"Maybe I hit him harder than I thought," the moderately older man says after a beat of silence, not sounding particularly guilty for it. He snaps his fingers, like one might do to call a dog, and says, "Speak, kid."

"I dunno," he says. "Just did it."

"He just did it," Johnson repeats with a chuckle.

"That's it," the man he's fought before says sourly. He starts towards him, drawing a fist back as he says, "I'm gonna--"

On instinct, he hits the man with a swift punch in the throat before he can get in a hit of his own. The man stumbles back a step before falling back to the ground, while Johnson and the woman with the nicotine teeth laugh. Their laughs are genuine, not a menacing front. Warm. Something about them makes him uncomfortable anyway.

"I like this kid," the woman says fondly. "Can we keep him?"

"No," the one he's fought before wheezes.

"He packs one helluva punch," the moderately older man says with a degree of approval. He doesn't particularly care for the way they talk about him as if he's not standing right here. He also isn't particularly interested in being kept. The man turns to him and asks, "Where'd you learn to fight like that, pal?"

He shrugs.

He doesn't know, and he doubts he'd care to tell this man even if he did. They are not, whatever this man might say, pals.

Actually the longer he's been standing here, the clearer it's become that this sense of unease isn't just leftover from a fight. It's something underlying, trying to tell him not to trust these people. An instinct.

He has a more difficult relationship with instinct than he thinks is normal. It's just that he can't always tell the general, intuitive coding people are born with--drink water when you're thirsty, sleep when you're tired, this thing is dangerous--apart from the vaguely familiar, the memories he can't quite get a grasp on but that warn him anyway.

He's never sure what's instinct and what's experience.

But there's one more instinct that's pretty loud, and he hasn't eaten since the toast he had this morning. So when Johnson says, "Well, how 'bout we talk more over dinner, huh, kid?"

It's tough to say no.

Besides, this Johnson person may be able to give him at least a couple of answers, ones that weren't available from the internet. So he stirs his voice to speak and says, in what he hopes sounds lighter than he feels, "Yeah. Alright."

"Don't get too enthusiastic on me," Johnson teases, clapping a heavy hand down on his shoulder. He doesn't flinch away from it, but he doesn't shift towards it either.

There's an all night diner towards the end of the block, and so they walk there. He lingers towards the back of the group while they walk, throwing looks over his shoulders at the sidewalk behind him. He could leave right now and they may not so much as notice. If he makes it to the diner, a quick escape won't be quite so easy.

Before he can make up his mind, they're arriving.

The one he's fought before opens the door and walks inside, followed shortly by the moderately older man and the others. He hovers a few feet back, not entering but not leaving.

Johnson leans out from the doorway and arches an eyebrow at him. He asks, "You comin' or what, boy?"

He nods and starts walking again.

As he steps through the door, he hears the moderately older man muttering, "Kid's half an idiot, I swear."

Johnson answering, "It's the other half that counts, Murry."

The others grab a table near the doorway, but Johnson steers him towards a different one a little ways off, nearer the windows. He's faintly relieved not to be sitting with a whole group. He hasn't spent a lot of time with people since the white room. Well, there's the other men at the construction sites, but they don't expect anything from him anymore.

That relief is overwhelmed, however, by the fact that he would much rather be sitting closer to the exit.

A waitress arrives at the table, bringing coffee and a notepad to take their order. Johnson orders for him without asking what it is he wants, which is fine because he doesn't know what you're supposed to order at a place like this. Most of his meals come from the old woman down the hall, or the gas station on the corner.

A long couple of seconds of quiet pass between them, and then Johnson says, like a question only it isn't, "So...You're lookin' pretty alive for a dead kid."

"I wouldn't go that far."

He says it like a joke, although it's true that, between the blood caked to his eyebrow and the bruises and the tired he's got to look at least half dead. But Johnson's expression quirks into a half smile, so he must like the joke.

"Like father, like son, I guess," Johnson remarks, taking a long dredge of his coffee.

He frowns. "You knew my father, too?"

"'Course I do," Johnson says easily. The cheap ceramic of the mug clunks against the surface of the table as he sets it back down, slopping a puddle of coffee onto the table. He doesn't seem to notice. "Willis was my best friend, how'd you think he met Cathy? Have some coffee, you look about ready to drop."

If he does, it's only thanks to the men Johnson calls friends.

The split in his lip stings whenever he moves his mouth, and there's a resounding ache in his stomach, from Murry and his brass knuckles. Every now and then the ache begins to dull, until he shifts in his seat or takes in a breath too deep and it flares up again. Reminding him he is not safe in this company.

He takes the mug in his hand, but doesn't actually drink from it. The warmth is nice, though, and he brings a second to hold it too. It quiets some of the buzzing in his head at least.

"So why don't I know you?"

It's a question he can get away with asking without giving up just how lost he is. Johnson wasn't surprised to have been forgotten. Had said he was only little when they met, like they only met a couple of times. Jason Todd didn't know Johnson. At least, he's fairly sure he didn't.

"It was Cathy's idea, y'know how mothers get. Overprotective and shit," Johnson says, offhandedly. "She thought I wouldn't be a good influence or somethin'. But we can put all that past us, 'cause here you are anyway. And, tragic as it is, she ain't here to keep me away from ya."

He gets the distinct impression there are a lot of things he's not being told. This isn't instinct or experience. It's the way Johnson chooses his words, and the dismissive way he waves his hand, as if waving any concerns away. As if she could've been overprotective without there being something to protect from.

He can't voice those questions though, when it's clear Johnson's deliberately concealing the answers. He agrees without conviction, "Yeah."

"So what's the story?" Johnson asks, leaning forward. Conspiratorial in a way.

"Story?" he echoes.

"Whole city thinks you're dead, Jason," Johnson says, like it's obvious that's what he meant. "Had a funeral and everything. And two years later I find ya brawling with my boys? I'm thinkin' there's a story there."

He wishes there was a story.

Something typed up neatly and printed out in paperback form, for him to read on the fire escape, or carry with him to keep him company at the bus stop. Where all of the questions have answers and he know not only the middle, but the beginning and the ending as well. But that's not quite right, because he thinks his story starts at the ending.

He's glad there's not a story.

He offers a noncommittal shrug and looks down at the mug in his hands. He doesn't have a better explanation.

"Alright, I get it," Johnson says, leaning back. He drapes an arm across the back of his seat and says, "It's still a secret, huh? Well, I'll get ya to tell me one day."

He doesn't like the sound of that.

Not only does it imply more questioning, it implies this man thinks they'll be seeing each other again.

This man only knew Jason Todd just well enough to be suspicious of him now, but not well enough to be able to provide any relevant answers. He also can not be trusted. He thinks maybe no one can.

The waitress arrives and sets two plates of food down in front of them. Offers a smile that's as warm as it is false and then disappears again.

There's a song playing just barely audibly over the diner speakers and he's almost certain he's never heard it before. The melody puts him slightly more at ease and he decides he doesn't like it. He doesn't want to be put at ease. Not when these people are still around him. He glances over his shoulder towards the door.

"It a secret where you learnt to fight like that, too?" Johnson asks.

He sips at his coffee, largely for an excuse not to answer. It's more bitter than he's used to and it burns his tongue, which wakes him up a little more before the caffeine does.

Johnson fronts as though this is a casual conversation, but there's something calculating in his expression. And he can't tell what it is the man is calculating. Johnson says, "I know ya didn't learn it from Willis. He could punch, sure, but you sure messed up Jimmy and Kurt. Three broken bones between 'em, and look at you. Perfectly fine."

He looks back at the other table, towards the one he fought before. Kurt, apparently. He wears a thin cast on one wrist, which means the other two must belong to Jimmy.

He wasn't trying to hurt them. It was an instinct.

They were trying to hurt that kid.

Johnson's waiting for an answer, and he knows he has to say something. He's got a feeling things will work out better for him if these people think they can trust him, and keeping secrets doesn't tend to gain trust. Although it isn't really keeping secrets if it's not information he actually has, he doesn't think.

If nothing else, this interaction is a good reminder why he hasn't tried to talk to anyone since the white room.

The books and swinging the hammer and fixing the sink are all so simple. People are very difficult. Very dangerous.

"Instinct?" he tries.

Johnson shakes his head and laughs. Changes the subject, "So what're you up to these days, kid?"

At last, a question he can easily answer.

"I do construction," he says with a small nod.

Technically, what he does is more like destruction. Every now and then he gets to put up a wall, but he's far better at tearing them down and so that's what they have him do.

But he likes the sound of construction better, so that's what he calls it. He likes the idea that he's capable of building something.

Johnson pulls a face and asks, "Really?"

"Yeah," he says, glancing towards the door once more out of the corner of his eye. Is that the wrong answer?

She doesn't talk much, but he can normally predict how the old woman down the hall will react to something. The same goes for the demolition crew he works with. He doesn't talk with them if he can avoid it, but many of them are consistent, and in short conversations he can predict what to say to avoid conflict.

He doesn't know Johnson. Can't predict him.

"Shit, what're ya doing that for? Come work for us," Johnson says.

He frowns.

Working with them will entail being around them, these people who expect him to be Jason Todd. He doesn't know how to do that. He doesn't know what job it is they want him to do.

"I don't know," he says, after a minute.

"What's a matter? Don't trust me?"

He doesn't trust Johnson.

He trusts Johnson's friends even less. The ones that threaten children, and carry weapons, and look at him as either a threat or half an idiot. He doesn't trust them, he doesn't even like them.

Before he can confirm or deny, Johnson shrugs and says, "Guess I don't blame ya. Family don't mean the same thing to you kids, and you don't know me from Adam."

He's not sure he knows an Adam.

Johnson continues, "But we pay better than construction, I'll bet. And hey, ya don't like it, you can quit. No hard feelings."

"What would I be doing?"

"You just gotta keep fightin' like you do," Johnson says easily.

He doesn't want to fight. Or maybe he just doesn't want to fight for them.

But life, it seems, demands a certain degree of fighting. It's been required of him ever since he fought his way out from beneath the earth.

He fought hunger, living on the streets between the white room and the apartment, before his first construction job. Finding food where he could, stealing when necessary. He fought gravity, every morning he's pushed himself off the ground despite what's holding him down. He fought two thugs in an alley. He fought the urge to leave the city altogether because there's something tying him here. He fought the urge to seek out what that something is.

He fought some more thugs in another alley.

Now those thugs want to pay him for what he's already going to be doing anyway, he doesn't know why he doesn't immediately leap at the concept.

His hesitation must show, because Johnson adjusts, "Really, ya just stand outside a door. I'll tell ya who to let in and who not to. Shouldn't be much real fightin' involved. Cross my heart."

At this, Johnson uses an index finger to draw an X over his chest.

After a second, he nods. "Alright. Sure."

"Jason Todd, back in the family business," Johnson says, and he doesn't like the way his name sounds in Johnson's mouth, but he doesn't object. "This is great, Willis'll be thrilled."

"Willis is dead."

"Uhuh, just like you are," Johnson says, a conspiratorial glint in his eyes. "What, you really didn't know?"

That vague sense of unease that's sat with him throughout this meal speeds up a little, back into real nerves. Perhaps he doesn't hail from a family of ghosts after all.

But then, if that's not true, maybe nothing he read is.

And there's a person out there who knows him, who would recognize him if he saw him on the streets. Who might be able to tell him how he really got in the box. How he got out.

Faced with the possibility of answers, he realizes maybe he does not want them.

"No," he says at last.

"Shit, I thought he would'a told ya. Guess it wouldn't look convincin' if ya knew," Johnson says thoughtfully. He leans forward and explains, "Old Willis got into some trouble with the Bat, thought it'd make things easier on him to disappear. Worked damn good, too."

His father is alive. He wants to find him and talk to him. He wants to run as far away as possible.

He can't do either, even if he knew which he wanted to do, until he knows, "Where is he now?"

"Gotham State Penitentiary," Johnson says, laughing obnoxiously.

"He's in prison?"

"Not as Willis, they think he's Frank Sanderson, the unlucky bastard," Johnson says. "Fakes his death and still goes to prison, that's one for the books right? I visit him now an' then."

He'll refrain from asking what it is Willis is imprisoned for. He has a feeling it's got something to do with whatever Johnson and the rest of his friends are up to. More important, Johnson's been deliberately vague in a lot of areas, and he has a feeling this man won't appreciate him asking for the finer details.

There's one question he has to ask, though. Whether it's going to be welcome or not.

"If Willis is alive," he says slowly, uncertainly. "Is my Mom..."

Johnson's exterior softens, just a little. He shakes his head before answering, "Sorry, kid. Cathy ain't comin' back."

He tells himself he wasn't hoping for a different answer. But he doesn't see why she should have to stay dead, if neither of them did. It just doesn't seem fair.

"I didn't think so," he mumbles, suddenly embarrassed for asking.

xXx

He parts ways with Johnson and his friends eventually. Heads back to the place he stays in with instructions from Johnson on when and where to find them again.

It feels much later into the night than it actually is. His limbs feel heavy and his head aches. To be fair, that could have more to do with the beating he took before than it does the hour.

Either way, he walks past the blankets and climbs out onto the fire escape.

The night air is cool on his face, and the city lights provide something as near as safe company as he ever comes. He can look out at the buildings and see the lights left on in windows and imagine the people concealed in them. Imagine lives without the fog, or the box. Imagine smiles that don't cover hidden meanings, and words that just mean what they say.

He wonders if the kid from that alleyway is one of those lights. Wonders which light is Johnson or his friends.

They haven't told him what exactly is behind the door they want him to guard. He wonders if, in leaving construction to work for them, he's merely traded one demolition crew for another.


	5. Haze

In the early mornings, he dreams of rain.

The steady grey that clouds the sky feels like coming home. Droplets of water fall down and sting like sand in the wind. Infinitely precious in the way that they soak and drown and renew the earth. That tightly packed dirt begins to loosen in the onslaught, enough to uncover a box, haphazardly buried someplace far away.

He dreams of the earth and of old beginnings.

xXx

He wakes later in the day than is usual for him. The traffic sounds below belong to mid noon, and not the confidential hush of early morning. All the better, for his meeting isn't until evening.

He gets up as on any other day. Winces at a stretch.

The wound on his shoulder isn't healing as quickly as he would like. It has the unfortunate habit of beginning to bleed again if he moves too sharply. Reminds him of its existence on any such occasion with a dull sting.

This morning it bites a little more than usual. He thinks healing is supposed to work the other way around; things are supposed to hurt less over time. Then, life is supposed to end after a box not begin there, so what does he know? He frowns and pokes at it, as if he can learn anything that way, wondering if he maybe just slept on his arm weird.

His shoulder still moves when he wills it. He determines it's not an issue that needs immediate action and heads about making breakfast.

He sets about brewing a pot of coffee before moving to the fridge, an ancient relic from the very first tenants that lived in this building. It hums a little too loudly, and some days isn't much cooler inside than out, but he's never seen a better one and doesn't think to complain. It works well enough for his purposes anyway.

Sometimes the interior holds Tupperware containers from the old woman down the hall. One of his other neighbors has taken to bringing him paper plates coated in cling wrap, stating that she's cooked too much and her kids won't eat all this and it'll go to waste if he doesn't accept it. He doesn't know how she can keep misjudging how much to cook.

Sometimes he accepts it, sometimes he doesn't. He hasn't had a chance to return any favors for her yet and he's unwilling to be too much in a stranger's debt.

This morning, the fridge holds no such treasures. Only a half empty carton of eggs.

This, mostly, because so far eggs are the only thing he's figured out how to cook. There's not even more than two dishes in his kitchen, one plate and one mug.

He doesn't cook enough to need more.

He fries a couple of eggs and eats in quiet and tells himself he likes the quiet. The solitude is safer and far more predictable and there's no one he has to pretend to be anyone for.

He fixes a sink for one of the old woman's friends in the building, who pays him in cash. It guarantees him a dinner for tonight. He pockets it and politely nods along to the story she tells him about when she was his age, and makes an escape before she can ask him for any stories about himself in return.

The sun is just beginning to set by the time he leaves for his appointment with Johnson and his friends. He takes the bus and walks a block and by the time he makes it there the sun is set.

Johnson isn't actually there when he shows up at the place they're supposed to meet. But the woman from that night is there, along with the man he's fought twice now--Kurt, he thinks he heard him called. The latter seems significantly less pleased to see him.

"We weren't sure you'd actually show," Kurt says, in a tone that conveys how displeased he is to have been wrong.

They take him to the door he's intended to keep watch of. They don't deign to show him what's actually behind this door, nor to explain why it's important he stand out front of it.

They give him a short list of who to allow through and who not to. They tell him to knock twice if anyone gives him trouble and they'll sound out backup, whatever that's supposed to mean. And they tell him knock three times if he sees any police approaching, or catches any sign of the Batman at all.

The longer they talk, the less sure he becomes about accepting their job offer.

Once they're through explaining, Kurt asks, "Think you can manage it?"

It sounds less like an honest question and more like he's being mocked. He takes his place at the door without acknowledging it beyond bristling slightly.

Should things come down to it, he's already learned he can take Kurt in an actual fight.

The woman laughs at him, although he can't discern a reason behind it, and she and Kurt head back off out the mouth of the alley the door is rooted in.

xXx

It's a quiet night, as far as patrols go.

Over the course of the past few days, neither Dick nor Bruce have made much headway in searching for the kid from the alleyway the other night. The man whose leg he broke was less than helpful, even when it was Batman questioning him in person.

Bruce was able to learn for a fact that it wasn't the kid that started the fight, at least. He gets the man, Jimmy, to admit they were, "Let's say negotiating with a customer. In a less than friendly manner. That's when the little shit decided to step in. People can't mind their own fuckin' business these days...Er, I don't mean you, Batman, you're swell."

"Just tell me what you can about the kid."

He was able to get a vague description. Height and relative build. That he wore a red hoodie a little too big for him. He was quiet, but from he did say it sounded like he was local.

But that's all he can learn. Like Dick mentioned, it was dark. No one got a very clear view of him.

After a certain point, Bruce had to tell Dick the search was pointless. They need more information to effectively find someone in a city this size, and they can't waste their efforts on a ghost when there are people who need their help now, etc, etc.

He meant all that, but he somehow finds himself visiting the alley from Dick's story on patrol tonight anyway.

The kid might or might not be around, but he spots the other man from the fight. A cast on his wrist and some fresh bruising on his throat, apparently he didn't learn a lesson the other night. But he's walking with another pair of men, one of whom Bruce recognizes from a drug bust about a year ago.

He makes the decision to follow them.

xXx

The first night he guards the door without encountering a single issue. Well, apart from a certain degree of boredom, that is.

The second night goes much the same, only he brings a book along to keep him company while he guards the door. It's one he's read before so he thinks it won't be too distracting to read while he keeps an eye out on the sidewalk just out front of the alley.

On the third night, the woman comes out from behind the door and offers him a cigarette. "Do you smoke?"

He can't remember ever having smoked before, but he accepts the cigarette from her nonetheless. He thinks he can avoid more scrutiny that way.

He watches how the woman holds hers carefully and mimics that.

He copies her and then he coughs and she laughs. The sound is warm and genuine but he dislikes it nonetheless. Stubbornly makes a second attempt at breathing in the chemical smoke. Exhales without coughing.

The task of taking burning smoke into his lungs and holding onto it is daunting, not because of the vague discomfort and more because it's familiar and completely strange to him at once.

If he ever has smoked before it's been a long time since.

Still he thinks these lungs have breathed smoke before. He gets a recollection through the haze of having lived this before, only magnified. It's a feeling associated with white hot panic, that tastes of cinder and copper. It's a memory, watching him from the fog.

He pokes at it and tries to remember. All he gets for it is a headache, and the woman's laugh becomes faintly more unsettling. He shifts a step away from her.

"So you like to read?" the woman says, gesturing towards the book in his other hand.

He answers in a noncommittal hum.

He doesn't know her well enough to decipher what it is, but she wants something from him. He wishes she would just say it upfront.

The silence passes another moment between them. He takes another drag off the cigarette and finds it easier than the last.

The woman glances out at the street, where a car whisks in and out of view. Says in a voice that's falsely sweet, "So you're the strong silent type, or do ya just not like me?"

"Do I have to pick one?"

He doesn't know what prompts him to respond so brusquely. Maybe it's the way the smoke and the laughter combine to make him anxious, maybe it's the inherent distrust he has in these people.

It doesn't matter. She seems to think he's joking.

She smiles at him, faintly conniving of something. Before he can figure it out a movement like a shadow appears in the corner of his eye.

He turns to look at it and finds that nothing's changed. The alley remains empty, aside from him, the woman, and the dumpster off on the other side. Maybe it was just one of the rats that he saw.

He asks, "How do you know my uncle?"

He wants to know what role these people would have played in Jason Todd's life. Wants to know how they're connected so he can know what they expect of him. If they're dangerous, and he thinks they may be, it would do him better to meet expectations upfront.

"Kurt introduced us," she says with a one shouldered shrug.

It tells him nothing.

"Oh," he says, looking back out at the street.

She chuckles. Flicks ash onto the ground off the end of her cigarette and says, "Yeah, he doesn't like you much either."

He opens his mouth to answer, but is cut short as a muffled shout makes it's way through the door. It's followed by a faint scuffling, a sound of a gunshot that has both him and the woman jumping back from the door.

Good thing too, because an instant later the door flies off its hinges, carrying Kurt with it. He and the door smash into the alley concrete.

Another man whose name he's yet to learn comes fleeing out the door, a figure in black chasing after him.

On instinct, he clocks the figure in black with a firm punch to the jaw as he steps through the door. An instant later he recognizes the figure as the Batman.

Shit.

In his peripheral vision he's aware of Kurt getting to his feet and limping towards the mouth of the alley. The woman's running away too, saying something frantic about where the car is parked. And he doesn't know much about the Batman, only these people must have good reason for wanting to make an escape so quickly.

He also knows he's the last to run, which means he'll be the first Batman catches up with. And if it's to be a fight no matter what, he doesn't see much sense in running.

He stands his ground.

Goes for the broken off plank of door just behind him and swings with as much force as he can muster. He misses and Batman lands a punch to his sternum that sends him stumbling backwards.

He manages to roll with the momentum to land back on his feet again. Snags a bag of trash off the top of the dumpster and throws.

He can feel the skin around his shoulder wound stretch further apart with the motion, a steady trickle of warm down his bicep as it reopens. He ignores it in favor of clambering up atop the dumpster, reaching for the fire escape.

By the time he manages to pull himself up onto the landing, Batman's somehow already there.

No wonder the others were so scared, this dude can move.

Batman's bigger than him but he tries pushing him anyway. Kicks at one of his ankles. A brief scuffle follows and then they're both going over the fire escape railing. Through the fall, he feels a pair of hands grab onto the lapels of his flannel. Twist him around so that when they hit the ground, Batman hits the concrete first.

He feels the collision reverberate through his bones anyway. He pushes himself up and starts for the mouth of the alley, and Batman grabs his wrist.

The man whose name he doesn't know appears at the mouth of the alley on a motorcycle and beckons him over with a hectic wave of his arm.

He punches Batman once more in the jaw, and his knuckles sting with the impact.

They stumble a few more steps towards the light of the sidewalk, and Batman sweeps his legs out from under him. His teeth clatter as his jaw smacks into the cement. The motorcycle's engine revs impatiently.

He aims a kick at Batman's shin, one that's easily dodged. Makes his way back to his feet once more, stumbling another step backwards, nearer the mouth of the alley.

Which is when Batman freezes. His expression is difficult to read through the cowl but it almost seems like shock or maybe disbelief or panic.

He can't imagine why he would make the Batman panic.

Batman takes a half step closer. Says, like he just can't believe it, "Jason?"


	6. Tracking Down

The Batman recognizes him. No, he doesn't just recognize him. He knows him by name. Knows him well, in fact. If the way his shoulders drop in what looks an awful lot like overwhelming relief is any indication.

Batman takes half a step forward and says, "Jason."

It seems like there's more he wants to say. Or maybe he just wants Batman to have something more meaningful to say to him besides a name.

He should stay and find out.

He should run.

Given the choice between the two, he defaults to the choice that's always been safer. He makes a run for it.

However Batman knows him, seeing him alive in this alley seems to shock him enough to slow him down. It gives him a chance to scramble backwards, climb onto the back of the motorcycle. The driver takes off without a second's hesitation.

He wonders what it's like to be that sure of his decisions, shooting a look back towards the mouth of the alley.

Batman's highly skilled, and fast, but he's not fast enough to follow a motorcycle on foot. That doesn't actually stop him from trying, and he has to wonder what makes him so worth chasing. In his past life was he an ally of some sort? It doesn't make a lot of sense. When he takes his current associates and Batman's reputation for going after the city's so-called villains, he wonders if it's more likely he'd done something horrible.

He finds little comfort in either option, and instead tries to focus on not flying off the back of a motorcycle weaving recklessly between city traffic.

Neon signs whizz past them, too blurry to read and instead just appearing as lines of color. At the same rate people fly by, he just catches one of them turning to stare before they shrink from view. They zip around a corner in a sudden turn and he almost loses his grip on the driver's waist.

They circle the block an extra two times to makes sure they weren't followed before pulling into a rundown mechanics garage.

The bike hasn't been still more than a second before he and the driver both throw themselves off it. The driver shoves him, hisses, "What the fuck, Jason?"

He stumbles back a step. His hands are halfway up to retaliate before he can reconsider it. He gets one good punch in before the man slams him back into a tool rack. There's a clambering of metal as the rack falls back, and him along with it.

"You were supposed to be watching the damn door," the man says. "What happened?"

He pushes himself back up to his feet. Indignant, for the shove and the unfounded accusation, growls, "I _was_ watching the door."

"Yeah? How'd he get in then? While we're at it, why does he know your fucking name?"

The man takes a threatening step nearer, and he mirrors it, standing straighter. The both of them are saved from finding out who will back down first, as the door on the far side of the garage swings open. The woman and Kurt burst in, varying levels of relieved to see them.

Johnson follows behind them. It's the first time he's seen him since their first--or second, if he's being technical--meeting. He doesn't seem pleased.

"Holy shit," the woman says. She puts a hand on his shoulder, as if to confirm he's there, before dropping it back to her side. "You're okay?"

"I'm fine."

"He's a fucking rat is what he is," Kurt is quick to add.

"I'm a what?" he challenges, advancing a step towards Kurt. Unlike the other man, Kurt immediately rocks a step back. He doesn't lose the accusatory glare, but it's not much of a threat when that's all he does.

Either way, Johnson diffuses the tension by stepping in between them. He whispers something to Kurt, pats him twice on the shoulder, then turns. Johnson looks at him with a pretense of understanding, but the flickering dance of anger behind his eyes betrays him. He says, like an instruction more than a question, "What happened?"

And here's the thing: he's not entirely sure what did happen.

All he knows is he was standing outside the door one second, and dodging a person being hurled through the door the next. Seeing as his only job was not to let anyone enter through the door, he technically hasn't really failed at the task they set him. He also doubts anyone else will see things that way.

He's come to believe the shadow he saw in the corner of his eye was not, in fact, just a rat. He still can't fathom how the Batman got past him. Can't fathom quite a bit about the Batman, really.

Like how they knew each other, for one thing.

"I don't know," he answers after a second.

He doesn't entirely trust Johnson, but the anger in his expression is just background to a degree of calm. And besides, they're family. Johnson's joy at him taking the job offer when they met had seemed genuine. He doesn't find reason to lie, especially when, given the facts, tonight wasn't his fault.

It turns out he is capable of reading people wrong.

The admission of the truth earns him a backhanded strike to the face. It throws him a step off balance, although he can't tell if that's due to that individual blow, or the increasing number of blows he seems to be taking lately. Either way, it wasn't something he was expecting from someone who claimed to be family.

Later he'll look back on it as a good learning experience. It's where he learns the lesson that even those who claim you as one of their people can still be a threat.

In the moment, he doesn't think of it that way. He doesn't think at all. Instinct has him raising his hands to hit back.

But he's tired, and Johnson must be expecting it, because before he can even swing he gets a fist to the gut. One that knocks the wind out of him, and as he doubles over Johnson puts a hand on his jaw, tilts his face up to look at him. Says, "Listen boy, I know you're new but there's a way things work 'round here--"

"Oh, take it easy on him," the woman says, gently pushing Johnson's hand away.

She places herself subtly in between Johnson and him, and his trust in her increases a little. Although that, apparently, he can not rely on.

Johnson sighs tiredly and says, "He's gotta know what happens when he doesn't do his job."

"He punched Batman in the _face,"_ the woman says. As she does she takes one of his hands and holds it up, indicating where his knuckles are bruised and bleeding. Not all of that is from hitting Batman specifically, but some of Johnson's wrath seems to dissipate so he won't bother to clarify that. "Give him some credit."

"I still got two of my boys missin', along with a whole lotta cash worth of product commandeered with them," Johnson tells her, although it's not her he's looking at when he says it. "Who am I s'pposed to give credit for that, huh?"

Not for the first time, he wonders what this product is that seems to be so important to them. They haven't found the time or reason to bother telling him.

The man who drives the motorcycle huffs and adds reluctantly, "He did give the Bat one helluva fight. One helluva losing fight, but hey, everyone else ditched."

"Alright," Johnson says, pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes towards the floor. He looks back up, saying, "Alright, get outta here kid. I'll have someone call ya when we need ya."

"I--" he starts to argue.

He's not wholly sure what it is he intends to argue. He certainly doesn't want to stay. Maybe he's hoping for something to say to put him back in Johnson's favor, if he was ever truly in it to begin with. Maybe he's just about to mention that he doesn't have a way back, without enough cash for the bus, and no clue where he is in the city to begin with.

Whatever it is, Johnson clearly doesn't want to hear it at the moment. He says, like ordering a dog, "Out."

With the distinct impression that disobedience would only get him hit again, he nods mutely and turns towards the door. The woman gives him a smile when he leaves, which he thinks is meant to be encouraging but largely isn't.

He slips out the front door of the garage, looks out in both directions before actually stepping out onto the sidewalk.

He imagines that in the morning he'll be mad. About being accused of something that was beyond his control. About being wrong about the level of threat Johnson was. About the whole body ache that is the only reward he seems to have gained from tonight's events. It all seems like the sort of thing to be mad about.

He imagines that in the morning he'll be worried. About how Batman knows his name. About Johnson. All of it.

For now, though, he steps out into the night and finds that he's frankly too exhausted to care.

His limbs feel heavier than usual and his shoulder's stopped its bleeding again but now the fabric of his shirt clings to his arm uncomfortably. And it's cold, and dark, and he's alone. Shooting glances over his shoulder as he walks to make sure he's not being followed by some phantom pursuer.

He eyes the bus stop on the corner and considers sleeping there for the night. He knows it's not safe, but he's just tired enough to consider it. Instead, he starts walking.

* * *

The Batmobile is parked just outside the Gotham City Cemetery. He's spent the past fifteen minutes willing himself to step out of the car.

The past two hours before that, tracing down footage off security cameras, to see if he could track the route of that motorcycle. Whoever was driving was either incredibly lucky, or incredibly informed on the security coverage in that section of the city. Bruce can't seem to rack them. The bike, along with both driver and passenger, are ghosts.

How fitting.

It's not that he's given up on finding the kid--far from it, in fact, he's only the more dedicated from tonight's events--it's just that for tonight it's a bust. And he needs an answer tonight. Which means there's only one place left to look, to determine if it was Jason he really saw.

It doesn't make any sense for it to be Jason he really saw. He went to the funeral, saw him buried. Saw him die. He wasn't there, that fact haunts him still to this day, but he witnessed it on tape a month after it happened. Courtesy of the Joker. Jason, he knows, is dead.

And yet, the kid in the alley...

He had looked about the age Jason would be now, had he not been murdered. His expression had seemed panicked when Bruce said his name. Not the normal 'oh my god it's Batman' variety of panic, something else. Something like an 'oh shit he recognized me' panic. Which isn't necessarily a comforting thought, but he can't explain it if the kid was just some kid.

What if it was just some kid? It was dark. His face was bruised, his nose crooked. He has to admit that it's possible this kid wasn't who Bruce took him for.

He has to admit it's possible he's seeing ghosts where there are none.

No.

That kid punched him in the face without a second's hesitation. He's only ever met one other kid with that kind of nerve. In fact he remembers teaching that kid to punch like that, even if he was far from new to fighting by the time Bruce got to him.

He would know that kid anywhere.

* * *

He finds his way back to the apartment building just as the sun is about to rise. He can see the faintest hints of light beginning to peak above the horizon, behind the rows of buildings.

He's never hated the flights of stairs so much in his remembered life.

What he hates more than the stairs is the apartment, in all its quiet empty. What he hates more than the quiet empty is the fact that he hates it. It's all he's ever known, he doesn't know why he should wish for anything else. It's safer this way anyway.

It's far too early in the day for the rest of the buildings tenants to be awake yet, though, and it only serves to amplify the quiet. When he can't hear the usual obnoxious music coming from the apartment on the floor above his, or the couple arguing next-door, as is their custom. The traffic outside is even silent, in a way that clings to him and seems to make the rooms bigger and the air heavier.

He sleeps.

* * *

He wakes up early, to an obnoxious noise from his phone. It's not his alarm. It's a ringtone. Why did he think that _Scotland the Brave_ was a good ringtone to set? Also who in their right mind is calling him at, he glances at the clock on his nightstand, six in the morning?

Actually, that's not that outrageous. If it's not after a patrol night, Dick's usually on a morning run by now.

Still, a glance at the screen tells him it's not anyone in their right mind. The contact Batdad is spelled across the screen, over a selfie he took with Bruce about a year ago. It occurs to him this is far too early in the day for Bruce to normally be waking up a second before it occurs to him that must mean Bruce never, in fact, went to sleep.

"Morning, B," Dick answers, still half asleep. He sits up a tad reluctantly, says, "What's up?"

"I think we should talk. It's about that kid from the alley, the one you told me about."

"Yeah?"

Bruce hums. A beat of silence passes before he says, "We should talk in person. How quick can you be home?"

"I dunno, fifteen, twenty minutes?"

"Great. See you then."

He hangs up.

Dick drags a hand over his face and climbs out of bed. A little more awake, he finds himself wondering what Bruce has to say to him that can't be conveyed over the phone.

It's about the kid from the alley? Shit. Two basic possibilities pass through his head as to why Bruce would call him at six a.m. about that kid, neither of them particularly pleasant. Either he's gone and gotten himself hurt, which doesn't seem unlikely since it looks like he picks fights where he's outnumbered on purpose, or at the very least doesn't worry about them; or he's gone and done something terrible. Hurt someone else.

That possibility also doesn't seem unlikely. A shard of glass to the carotid artery leaves a lasting impression, whether or not you follow through with it. Dick doubts the kid's capable of murder, but he's certainly capable of something.

He throws on some clean clothes, snags his car keys off the rack by the door, and ducks outside. The sun pokes out from above the city line.

It's early, but apparently not early enough to avoid some level of traffic. The morning commuters are already on the road, honking at some yuppie on a bicycle.

It's nearer to the twenty minute mark than fifteen by the time Dick pulls into the drive outside Wayne Manor. He parks. Walks the familiar path up towards the front door, and through to the main sitting room from there. He finds Bruce and Alfred standing off by a window, talking in hushed conversation, despite no one being around to overhear.

"You may wish to be seated," Alfred says when Dick walks in, without so much as looking up.

"Jeez, Alf, cliché much?"

"He's right," Bruce adds.

Dick puts his palms up in a mock gesture of surrender and takes a seat on the couch. He has to admit this sort of welcome only has him more anxious as to the wellbeing of that kid.

He asks, "Is everything okay?"

Bruce looks at Alfred, raises his eyebrows. Alfred nods. Dick swears those two invented the art of silent communication. After a second, Bruce turns back to Dick and says with a ripping-off-the-band-aid approach, "It's Jason."

"What's Jason?"

"The kid. From the alley."

Dick frowns. He's not sure he's understanding this properly. They can't mean _their_ Jason. There has to be some other relevant Jason he's forgetting about. "Mraz? Statham? Momoa?"

He's starting to think more and more that they do mean their Jason. Because there's not even a hint of amusement as Dick rattles off famous Jason's, none of whom are young or small enough to have been that kid. But their Jason is dead. He died. He's not fucking around in some alley, picking fights with men who are bigger than him and carry more weapons than him...no, actually that sounds like something their Jason would do.

"Todd," Bruce says.

For all their talk of sitting down, Dick's on his feet in an instant. "Bullshit."

"I don't know how, but it is."

"How?" Yes, he realizes Bruce just said he didn't know how. He can't stop himself from blurting the question out anyway. He rakes a hand through his hair and amends, "How do you know?"

"I found him last night."

"Where is he?"

"He slipped away," Bruce says, eyes momentarily cast towards his shoes. With a frown he explains, "We got in a fight, before I recognized him. I was there for...well I guess he's working for them. A drug ring in the East End."

The more Dick hears, the less it makes sense.

If it's really Jason, why would run from Bruce? Why did he run from Dick in that alley? And what the hell is he doing working for a drug ring? Jason hates that stuff. He blames it for killing his mom, and greets the subject with the amount of righteous fury you would expect from someone who loves their mom. Jason would never, never willingly work for drug dealers.

But then, if Jason's not dead, then Dick apparently doesn't know as much about the kid as he thought.

"What happened?" he demands.

And he listens to Bruce explain. Alfred listens attentively with him, even though Dick's sure he's already heard the full story.

Bruce explains how he wasn't trying to hurt the kid even before he recognized him, just chase him, before he could get away. The kid had other ideas. And it was dark.

He explains how he followed a couple of criminal types he was already familiar with back to the alley Dick first found the kid in. Snuck his way into the building to find out what was really going and, surprise of all surprises, they've been smuggling and dealing heroine. He only managed to bring in two of them, along with the supply they were keeping in the building.

Everyone else was able to get away while he was distracted by the kid.

The kid who stumbled into the light only to reveal he had Jason's face. Older and bruised and afraid, but Jason's face nonetheless.

Bruce had checked the cemetery just to be certain. Jason's coffin was empty. The groundskeeper said it had been for about two years, around six months after Jason died it looked like someone dug him up, and boy was Bruce not happy no one thought to inform him that his kid's grave had been ostensibly desecrated two whole years ago.

Dick doesn't blame him for being upset.

Even beyond the indignance at not being informed. Because if they'd looked into this two years ago, they would've found out Jason was alive. Two years ago.

Why hasn't he come back to them? What's he been doing for two whole years?

It goes without saying, but Dick says it anyway, "We have to find him."

"I'm working on it," Bruce says. The frustration to his voice speaks to the lack of success he's had thus far.

"What I find most troubling is what he's doing with these men in the first place," Alfred remarks. "It's unlikely he would enter an engagement with them willingly."

Dick doesn't like the sounds of that.

But Alfred's right, he wouldn't. Besides, the two men Dick caught him fighting that night appear to have also been working for this drug ring. That is, most likely, not a coincidence. But what do they want with Jason?

"It doesn't make sense," Dick says, dropping back onto the couch with a defeated huff.

"I know."

He doesn't like the sounds of that, either. He's not accustomed to Bruce being as lost as he is. Batman is supposed to have all the answers.

Bruce takes a seat on the couch beside him, his hand becomes a comforting weight on his shoulder. And it sounds as much like he's reassuring himself as he is Dick when he says, "We'll find him."

* * *

He jolts awake with the faint remembrance of a shout on his lips. What it is he was shouting about, he can't seem to access.

The contents of his dream seem to have journeyed their way into the fog, leaving him with only the cold sweat and a very strong sense of panic to even be sure he dreamt at all. That, and the faint echoes of an obnoxious laugh rattling off of the walls of his skull.

He finds that he is, at least this time, glad to wake up and find himself alone.

He untangles himself from the blankets, which have wound themselves around his limbs as he slept, and pushes himself to his feet. There's a very solid ache in his shoulder, in his jaw, in his feet. It looks as though it's still early morning. He wishes he could have rested longer. He knows there will be no going back to sleep soon, not with whatever it is making his hands tremor now that he's awoken.

Instead he sneaks back out onto the fire escape.

The bustling of the city and its people, visible at a safe distance from on high, doesn't bring him what it's supposed to. Focus as he might, his head can't seem to clear.

He digs the newspaper clipping of the Batman out of his pocket. Uncrumples it and blinks down at the masked face looking back out at him. Hears his own name reverberate in his memory, spoken like finding something long lost. Something precious or something hated? He doesn't have the experience to determine the difference.

"Jason Todd," he says under his breath. Pokes the bruise. "Ally and friend."

The shaking in his hands does not quite stop, but it steadies, a little.

He thinks of a box. Seven by two and six feet under.

He takes in a breath. To remind himself how nice it is to breath air instead of earth. How nice it is to breath at all.

 _Jason._ He hears the Batman's voice in his head. _Cathy's boy._ Johnson says. And _Kid's half an idiot_ and _You're the strong silent type_ and _ListenBoyFuckingRatAWayThingsWorkAroundHereYou'reOkayJasonJasonJASON_ and the laugh. He doesn't even know who the laugh belongs to.

With a noise that's as much a shout as he can muster, he crumbles the photograph back up and hurls it trough the window, back inside the apartment. Watches the little paper boll bounce twice and roll towards the front door. Squeezes his eyes shut and takes his head in his hands, brings his knees up to meet his chest. Imagines himself getting smaller and smaller until he's finally gone.

He opens his eyes and he's not gone.

He looks down at the street below. Traffic is beginning to pick noisily back up. The loud feels just as oppressive as the quiet and he begins to wonder if it's actually his surroundings that are the problem.

_Jason Todd._

If he keeps running from his own name he'll be running forever. Until his lungs give up or his legs do, whichever comes last. He'll be running and fighting and alone and running and fighting and...

He has to confront it.

He thinks he knows how to confront it. He has to find someone who knows him. Someone who knows Jason Todd better than anyone else. Someone who, if the books and the families he sees on the street and the stories he hears from the old woman down the hall about her own family, he knows will help him.

Last night's experience with Johnson taught him that family is not as strong a bond as it is supposed to be, yes. But that's just an uncle. An uncle that only ever met him once before anyway.

He's just desperate enough to be willing to learn whether the same remains true for closer family.

He has to talk to his dad.

He has to talk to Willis Todd.


	7. Boys Will Be Boys

It's easier to realize what he has to do than it actually is to do it. And it's easier to locate Willis Todd than it is to speak with him.

Finding him is simple enough, Johnson told him where to look the night they met. Willis is in Gotham State Penitentiary, under the assumed name of Frank Sanderson. And finding a route to Gotham State Penitentiary is as simple as looking at any city map.

Getting in to have a conversation proves more difficult.

Most places, he's found, he can go without much more effort than stepping through the door. The gas stations and the convenience stores and his own apartment building. All of them he can just approach. Every now and then he's been questioned when doing construction in one of the nicer blocks of the city, by people who thought he looked out of place, but that's the largest issue he's encountered.

Without any previous experiences to draw from--that he can recall anyway--he had assumed penitentiaries operated much the same way. He knows they're there to keep the people within from leaving, but he didn't see a reason that would make getting in a challenge.

He realizes his mistake standing across the street.

For one thing, there's no immediate door for him to walk through. First there's a gate, lined at the top with barbed wire, and guarded by men who carry weapons. One such man stands inside a booth at the opening to the gate and decides who gets to enter or exit.

What qualifications this man makes those judgments on is unclear, but he hasn't come this far to not talk to Willis, and so he approaches the booth. The man asks without looking up what he is there for, and he answers that he's there to speak to someone. The man asks who. He answers Frank Sanderson. So far so good.

The man says, "Name?"

"I just told you."

"No, your name," the man clarifies, finally looking up at him. There's a scrutinizing frown in his face when he adds, "And you know minors can't make visits without a legal guardian present, right, kid?"

He tries, with little hope of success, "I'm not a minor."

"Okay," the man says with a disbelieving nod. "Let's see some I.D."

He doesn't have I.D. For the same reason he doesn't have a legal guardian.

Legally, he's dead. He doesn't exist. He's a ghost.

Being a ghost has worked for him up to this point. He's been able to skirt around his age and lack of identification by working for people who don't seem to mind, or in some cases welcome, the fact that he doesn't technically exist.

They don't mind because it means they can pay him less or treat him worse and he can't do anything about it. But he doesn't mind that either, because being a ghost also means he can just disappear again whenever he sees fit. It meant he could sneak out of the white room without anyone coming looking for him.

It means that even if he is a minor he can live alone in the building he stays in. Which is only good because alone is his only option, but if he weren't a ghost people would tell him he couldn't stay.

Now it presents an issue.

He can't pass through the gate because of his inexistence. Which means he can't talk to Willis, which means he can't get any closer to figuring out how he's supposed to exist in the first place.

He hears the man in the booth snort as he turns to walk away.

He'll have to come up with a different plan to get to Willis.

Until then, he makes his way back towards the bus stop, to board a bus back towards his apartment building.

He knows it's only been about thirteen hours since Johnson sent him away, but the lack of word from him or his people is beginning to weigh on him. They made him abandon his construction job for them, because they needed open availability from him. It seemed reasonable, and Johnson was right, they did pay better than construction.

Only now he relies on them. He needs them to give him work to do if he wants to eat.

He tells himself that's the only reason his failure last night is bothering him, although he's aware less than distantly that it's not the whole truth. Until he can get to Willis, Johnson is the only family he has.

He might not trust these people, he might not even like them. But they're his only tethers to the real world. Without them, and as a ghost, he fears he'll drift far away. And he'll never learn what it really is keeping him in Gotham. He'll never learn what the words _ally & friend_ inscribed above his tomb mean.

He wants to learn what the words _ally & friend_ mean. Even if that meaning comes along with this hurt.

He doesn't want to learn.

His bus is here.

With one last glance over his shoulder, in the direction of the Penitentiary, he steps aboard the bus. Nods at the driver. He's always likes the bus drivers, they're some of the only strangers who don't give him strange looks for all the bruises he wears.

Most of the time when he takes the bus he heads towards the back, where there's the most empty seating. It never lasts but he prefers to take a seat as far away from everyone else as possible. It makes it all the easier to avoid the overly chatty, often nosy strangers that one might encounter on public transit.

He never takes the window seat, either. He doesn't like the way his path of escape is restricted when someone takes the seat next to him. Doesn't like being confined in such a small space with people he does not know.

This time the bus is too full for a walk to the back to be worth the effort anyway. He takes the first open seat he spots and watches the cityscape pass by through the windows.

At the next stop more people get on and he presses himself closer to the window just to keep that inch of space between him and the man that takes the empty seat at his side. The man's wearing headphones but playing the music so loud he can hear it through them anyway. He's too absorbed in the screen of his phone to be paying any attention to the rest of the bus.

He faintly wonders what that must be like. To be able to navigate the world with such ease that your surroundings are insignificant.

He looks back out the window and can't even say if this is a block he's visited before. Can't even know if that woman walking her dog is someone he's met, or if he's purchased a sandwich from that sub shop on the corner.

This whole world is foreign and he hates it. It only urges him on to find a way in to talk to Willis. To get answers.

Once they approach a block he's spent more time in at least some of the tension releases from his muscles. He's not totally comfortable but he can breath easier in an area familiar to him.

He gets off at his stop and welcomes a world he can navigate with ease, however small it may be. He will walk down the street towards his apartment building. He might stop at the bodega across the street, he has some cash left from the bus and there's a distant rumbling in his stomach. He might skip the bodega and find whatever leftovers remain in his fridge.

He decides he doesn't have the funds to buy something to eat and heads straight for the apartment building instead. Walks up the steps towards the door and steps into the hallway.

Up the stairs and around the corner.

He just suppresses the urge to turn and run when he spots the figure in the hall, loitering just outside his door. An urge which only increases when he recognizes the figure as the man from last night, who drove the motorcycle and tried to fight him at the garage, and who apparently now knows where he lives. How did he find him?

Johnson has his address. Johnson must have sent him.

He swallows the sense of unease and walks casually down the hall. The man notices him and greets him with a light nod. Says, "Jason. Where you been?"

He skips the answer and instead asks, "What are you doing here?"

"Chill, your uncle sent me," the man says, putting his hands up in mock defense. "He's got a new job for you. Y'know, since you fucked up the last one."

"I didn't--" he starts defensively, before cutting himself off.

He doesn't have anything to defend himself for, not to this man, and he won't have him believing otherwise.

The balance he's struck with Johnson's people so far is precarious. Their first impression of him was the bones he broke in the alley, and that's earned him a small amount of reputation amongst them.

Their second impression is meeting him though. He's young and antisocial which to them means inexperienced--which technically is not incorrect, since he doesn't have many experiences to remember. But they seem to think of it as an experiment; they want to know how much they can get away with pushing him.

He won't let himself be pushed. That reputation is a shield, one he knows the dangers of losing.

He advances the rest of the way to his door and stops there. Asks with a confidence not his own, "What's the job?"

"Don't you wanna invite me inside?"

"Not particularly."

The man rolls his eyes. Says, "You can drive, right?"

He's not sure. He's never tried.

"Yeah."

"Great," the man says, slapping a napkin to his chest. "Meet us here at ten tonight. You're the getaway driver."

He shoves the man's hand away but accepts the napkin. There's an address scribbled on it, slightly blurred from what appears to be a coffee stain. And underneath it is underlined, _Don't be late._

With a frown, he asks, "What are we getting away from?"

"None of your business, that's what. Just be there."

"Fine," he says, rereading the address.

He's not overly thrilled at his second opportunity being something he's not sure he knows how to do, but he doubts he can easily explain not being sure if he can drive or not. Besides, if he rejects this there might not be another offer. And he can't lose this, he needs the money.

Maybe driving will be like walking, or fighting. Neither of those were things he remembered doing before he woke up in the ground, but when the need arose, his body remembered.

"Just know if Batman shows up to this one, you're not getting a third chance."

He doesn't have to ask if that's a threat.

"I didn't rat," he says with conviction.

He couldn't have even if he'd wanted to. He doesn't know Batman. He wouldn't know where to find him to rat to.

"Uhuh," the man says skeptically. "Sure you didn't."

The ease with which he accuses him of disloyalty is frustrating. Almost as frustrating as the way he pats his shoulder, condescending and sure nothing will be done about it. And the man can't know that there's a wound on the very arm he chooses to pat, but it does nothing for his distaste of the gesture.

It might be the increasing frustration with the situation and it might be the flare of pain that shoots up from his arm. Whatever the cause, he grabs the man by the shirt collar and slams him back into the wall.

Before he can say anything there's the clicking of a lock and a door creaking open. The old woman from down the hall.

She looks concerned, and it's out of something like guilt that he lightens his grip on the man. It's out of something like protectiveness that he doesn't let go completely.

The man waves a hand at her, an insufferably cheery grin playing across his face. He says, "We're all good here, ma'am."

She doesn't seem to totally believe him.

Her eyes shift away from the man to him, as if silently asking if he's okay. Despite him being the one pinning someone else to a wall. He can't find the words to explain himself to her. He doesn't want her to think of him as violent. She's not like the others, he doesn't need the same shield from her. He doesn't want her to feel like she needs a shield from him.

The man saves him from an explanation. Chuckles and says, "We were just horsing around. Sorry for the noise."

And he grits his teeth and makes himself smile and nod in agreement, even as the man gives his shoulder another semi playful smack. He takes half a step back, without releasing his grip.

The woman smiles and with a remark about how "Boys will be boys," she disappears back into her apartment.

"Friend of yours?" the man asks like a mockery after she's gone.

"No."

He doesn't have any friends.

"Whatever," the man says dismissively. "Get your fucking hands off'a me. I got places to be."

With a huff he relinquishes his grip on the man's shirt collar. Warily looks back at the old woman's door before stepping back to allow the man passage down the hall.

He doesn't think the man misses that glance. He arches an eyebrow but doesn't comment on it.

The man's only taken about two steps away when he halts. Turns back to say, "I don't think Johnson would like it much if I told him the Bat knew you by name."

"So don't tell him."

"Don't make me tell him."

With that, the man turns and starts down the stairwell out the building.

He loiters a second in the hallway after the man has gone, irrationally worried that he might come back. For all he knows it may not be irrational. He wasn't expecting the man to show up here in the first place.

They gave him a cheap burner phone when they hired him. So far, they haven't had much need to use it. But the purpose was for contacting him with any changes in plans or scheduling or whatever they needed him for. He can't imagine a reason they couldn't have used the phone.

The man showing up at his door must have been there for a reason.

All he can think of is the weight of unease that settles on his shoulders as he unlocks the door and steps inside. He's been letting his guard down, thinking himself safe here. With the visit comes the realization he isn't safe anywhere. Not wholly.


	8. Rearview

In the hours between the man stopping by and the time he's meant to meet them, he makes a trip to the library.

He finds his way to the computers and skims through a couple of pages on driving. None of it sparks any sense of familiarity, but then, that's nothing new. He just tries to gather enough information to make it seem like he knows what he's doing tonight.

Back at the apartment, he pages through the book from the woman in blue.

Paces.

Climbs out onto the fire escape to see if he can spot Gotham State Penitentiary from where he is.

He doesn't know how he's supposed to get inside. He can't prove he exists, and they won't let anyone who doesn't exist through the doors. They won't let him through the doors at all without a legal guardian. And he doubts he's ever had a guardian of any kind, legal or otherwise.

The woman in blue is the closest he's come to having anyone looking out for him, and she was paid to do so. He doesn't even know her name and she doesn't know his.

It's possible that Johnson could get him in. Johnson said he visits Willis, from time to time. Maybe...

He doubts he can ask Johnson for a favor after what's happened. He has to ask Johnson for a favor. It's all the more reason tonight has to go well.

He slips into the red hoodie before he leaves that night. It's not particularly colder than other nights, he might not need it. Still, it makes him feel oddly secure, in a way few things do.

He double checks the address scrawled on the napkin a good three times on his way there, just to be sure he's read it right and he's headed to the right place.

So far his memory problems are mostly concerned with the past life. It's another person's memories locked behind the ether, out of his access. His own life, in the days following the white room, he's not nearly as fuzzy on. He's not the best with names, but he can remember addresses and faces and routes and quotes and all of it. Just as well as anyone else can.

He doesn't remember any of it with confidence though, and it's better to be sure. He can't mess things up with Johnson and his crew.

There are a total of four people loitering outside the address when he arrives. Johnson isn't one of them, and he's relieved and disappointed all at once.

Murry is there, along with Kurt, the woman, and the man. Three of them are smoking cigarettes, and two of them smile upon seeing him. The woman is one of them, and she waves a hand, beckoning him over with a call of, "Hey, Jason!"

"He's our driver?" Kurt says, looking at his companions in disbelief. None of them seem bothered, so Kurt instead turns a critical eye on him, asking, "Are you even old enough to drive?"

"We're robbing the cartels and you're worried if the kid has a license?" Murry scoffs.

"We're what?" he asks with a frown.

Everyone looks at him, and he regrets asking it out loud the instant they do. He doesn't like them thinking he's scared or inexperienced any more than they already do.

It not that he doesn't know about the cartels.

He's fairly certain everyone on this end of the city has at least some knowledge of them. There's at least three that he's heard of, albeit he doesn't know much about them. Hasn't heard much beyond the passing mention. He knows they're powerful in some manner of speaking and that the people in his apartment building are scared of them.

They are, according to one of the news articles he's read, not on very good terms with the Batman.

This is largely confusing to him, because if they're supposed to be robbing them, they must not be on good terms with Johnson's crew either. But the way the news makes it sound, it's Batman versus the criminals. Batman is good, and everyone he fights is bad.

He had assumed all of Batman's enemies, then, were united.

"We gotta earn back the product you lost somehow," the man answers snidely, flicking ash off the end of his cigarette. "You ready to drive or what?"

He's not sure.

But he catches the set of keys as the man throws them to him--or at him, rather, as they're about an inch away from his face where he catches them--and walks towards the car with the rest of them.

They have him driving a nondescript van, dark grey in color and bulky in shape. He's not confident in being able to drive it well. He is more confident that even if he can't, it'll take an awful lot of force to cause any damage to the van from the outside anyway. He has a feeling this is intentional, even if his own lack of driving ability isn't what drove the intention.

He climbs into the front seat, and hears the doors opening and closing as the others pile into the car. Murry takes the front passenger seat, putting his cigarette out on the dashboard and leaning back in his seat.

The others clearly have more confidence in his skill than he does.

He's figuring out how to start the car when a hand appears in front of him, holding out a white bandana. He over his shoulder, at the man offering it to him, and his confusion must show because the man rolls his eyes. He says, "We don't want you getting recognized again, now do we?"

A quick glance around the car shows them all donning bandanas of their own, which tells him none of them want to be recognized. Still, he can't help but bristle a little at the way the man elects to single him out.

He watches Murry put his on and copies him, folding the square of fabric into a little triangle and tying the corners behind his head.

It's suffocating and comforting all at once.

He tries not to think about it as he places the keys in the ignition. The car comes to life like it's supposed to, he figures he's at least doing something right.

There's a sudden blast of music from the dashboard speakers.

Murry swears and mutters something about having told someone to turn that shit off under his breath as he reaches to switch the volume off. He points to one end of the street and says, "This way, take the first left."

He nods.

Tries to recall what the computer told him about which pedal was the gas and which the brake. The car rolls abruptly forward, and he ignores the heckling from Kurt in favor of focusing on the road ahead.

It turns out getting the car to go where he wants it to is the easy part. It's keeping out of the way of other cars doing the same that proves more difficult.

He runs a red light and Murry laughs. The sound of it sends a shiver down his spine that he can't explain.

His driving, he's sure, is far from good. But he gets minimal remarks from the others, Kurt and the other man aside, and before long Murry is telling him to pull off to the mouth of this alley. He does as he's told, even if he gets a few digs for bothering to signal his turn.

"Keep the car running," Murry says once they get there. "Don't leave 'till I say so."

"Sit and stay," the man says, cracking a grin. He can't help a slight flinch as the man reaches a hand towards him, patting his head with a patronizing, "Good Jason."

The bandana may just be the only reason he doesn't respond in kind by biting the man's hand.

An instant later he's left alone in the front seat of the car.

He learns he does not like waiting, nor sitting idly by.

He hears gunshots from inside the building his not-friends disappeared into, and sitting in the driver's seat of a car suddenly becomes far more challenging. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel. Sends furtive glances through the rearview mirror and over his shoulder towards the back door.

The clock on the dashboard tells him they've been gone eight minutes. It feels much longer.

The metal door at the back of the building slams open, and the woman and Kurt emerge, the former firing shots over her shoulder. Both of them lugging heavy looking duffel bags in their arms.

They pile the duffel bags into the back of the van before starting back towards the door.

Murry and the other man follow shortly after, a mirror image of the woman and Kurt. Firing bullets recklessly and carrying duffel bags. A thick red appears to be seeping through the shin of Murry's pantleg, but otherwise they seem unharmed.

They, too, toss their bags into the back of the van. Kurt and the woman return with another set of them, and once that's loaded, everyone climbs hastily back into their seats. 

"Drive," Murry instructs.

There's some shouting behind them, he hears more guns firing, and he presses down on the gas pedal and drives.

The bullets continue to come at them even as he swerves out onto the road. A quick glance back in the mirrors shows a set of motorbikes readying to follow.

"Faster," Kurt urges, less than helpfully.

"Shut up," he growls back, pushing to see if the car will accelerate any faster nonetheless.

He takes a corner turn a little too sharp and the backside of the van whips out to the side. He has to fight against the steering wheel to angle it back out properly, watching the bikes follow behind in the rearview mirror. One of the riders draws a hand off the handlebars to pull a gun from a holster on their thigh.

He hears more than feels the bullet that lodges it's way into the side of the van, just below the driver side window.

The man swears and rolls his own window down, firing outside.

He loses track of who's firing at who as the van rounds another corner, jerking to the side again, and an idea strikes him as he straightens the car back out.

He slows down as they approach the next traffic light, letting the bikes catch up a little and ignoring the criticisms howled at him from each side of the car. When the time comes he spins into a turn as abruptly as he can, and when back of the van whips out to the side it slams smack into one of the bikes.

The woman claps her hands with an approving, "Whoo!"

They're approving enough that no one comments when he accidentally skips the tires over the side of a curb.

The man takes the second bike out with a shot at the front tire.

He hears police sirens off in the distance, but before they can be caught by them, the man indicates an upcoming tunnel and he drives through it. The side of the van scrapes once against the edge of the tunnel, and then they're pulling back out into open road.

Eventually they wind up back at the garage from the night before.

He pulls the van in and the woman is quick to hop out and tug the garage door closed behind them, blocking off any potential view from the streets. He climbs out of the driver's seat and is quick to tug the bandana down from his face, the fabric hanging around his neck instead.

Murry claps a hand on his shoulder in passing and remarks, "Nice driving, kid."

"Damn nice driving," the woman agrees with conviction, pressing a kiss into his hairline.

He resists the urge to shrink away from the touch, lest he offend her in some way. Kurt shoots him a dirty look. He and the other man seem less inclined to compliment him, although their insults don't come quite as fast. Frankly, he prefers that. He's not accustomed to responding to praise, he's not certain what to do with it.

He acknowledges them with a small nod and buries his still shaking hands in his pockets.

Johnson makes an appearance as they're unloading the duffel bags out onto a messy table. Murry's sitting off to the side with a first aid kit, dressing a wound on his leg. He nods at Johnson, and the pair of them begin to talk.

He can't quite make out what they're saying from across the room, but once or twice he catches Murry nodding over towards him. A look of amusement plays across Johnson's face at one point. He pretends to ignore them in favor of helping unload the bags. He pretends to ignore his curiosity as to what they hold, too.

Unloading the bags is quick, and he watches as Kurt slides the back doors of the van closed once more. There are a few bullet holes carved into the doors.

Kurt and the woman cross over to discuss something with Murry. The man jabs him in the side in a manner that's almost playful, then dances off to join the others before he can retaliate.

He lingers back by the door and watches them talk.

Johnson approaches him after a moment or so and passes him a roll of cash for his payment. Pats him heavily on the shoulder, the good one thankfully, and says, "Nice work, boy. Knew I wouldn't regret giving ya that second chance."

He hadn't seemed quite so convinced of that yesterday.

But where he doesn't care for the praise or approval of the other's one way or another, Johnson's is something he needs. And he'll accept it, even if he has to push aside some petty indignation in doing so. He doesn't know enough about the rules of this world, anyway, to know for sure that Johnson striking him wasn't his own fault after all.

"Thank you," he says uncertainly.

"Think you can work delivery tomorrow night?"

This is good. Being offered a follow up job so quick. It's a sign his previous mistake is moving towards being forgiven, if not forgotten.

He offers a small nod and a, "Yeah, sure."

"That's what I like to hear," Johnson says easily, and then he's turning to reunite across the room with the others. He waves a hand over his shoulder and adds dismissively, "You can head on out for the night, kid."

He should head out for the night. He should wait to ask Johnson's help, until Johnson has more reason to give it to him.

He doesn't think he can wait. The longer he goes without finding answers, the less sure he is of what questions he should be asking. The longer he goes on his own, the more likely he becomes to stay that way. He can't. He can't stay that way.

Before Johnson can get to far he follows after, saying, "I had a question."

"Go for it," Johnson says, pausing to look down at him.

With all of Johnson's attention on him, he suddenly feels a little foolish for thinking to ask. Of course Johnson won't want to help him. He's been nothing but trouble for them since the beginning. Besides, maybe it's not so important it can't wait until tomorrow. He thinks it is, but Johnson might not see it that way, and he's already been dismissed. He should be leaving right now.

He asks, "Can you get me in to see me dad?"

He finds that he hates the way the words sound on his voice.

Pitiful and sad. When he's not looking for pity, and he's not sad. He's just lost. Referring to Willis as his dad feels foreign, not totally in the same way everything else feels foreign. The word tastes like ash on his tongue and he doesn't care for how young it makes him sound.

Johnson shoots him a skeptical look. Casual, but disguised in it that same glimmer of something that makes him feel smaller. Says, "Why d'you wanna see Willis?"

"I--" he starts, before realizing he doesn't have a proper explanation. "I need to talk to him."

He can't explain why he needs to talk to him, or what he needs to talk to him about. Not for any necessity of keeping it secret, it's just that he himself doesn't even know the answer.

Johnson's brow furrows at the vague response. He says, "No shit."

He falters for a second before offering, "It's important."

That much he's sure of.

"Can't be that important," Johnson says, like a joke. "You thought he was dead for how long before it came up?"

It seems to imply he didn't know Willis was alive for lack of caring. Which he can't totally deny, since he does not know if he ever knew the truth about Willis Todd's fate before Johnson explained it to him.

Still, he ought to have thought of a good excuse before starting this conversation. He knew Johnson would be withholding of any assistance he asked for.

With a frustrated huff he says, "Can you get me in or not?"

"Watch your tone," Johnson says pointedly. Then, "Maybe I can take him a message for ya."

"No, that won't work. I have to see him."

"What, you can't trust me with it?"

There's a flicker of suspicion in Johnson's tone, and although he has no reason to believe he's done anything necessarily wrong, he finds himself taking a slight step backwards. It might not be his main reasoning, but it is true, he doesn't trust Johnson with this. He's not even sure he trusts Willis with this, but he's beginning to doubt he can handle it on his own.

He clears his throat, but comes up short of any response that will make Johnson understand without making him understand everything.

"I just have to see him," he says.

"Good luck with that. You're legally dead, I dunno how you plan on makin' the visitor's list."

He wants to be angry with Johnson over this, but he doesn't think he can. It's not Johnson's fault he can't get in. Not, to his knowledge anyway, Johnson's fault he's dead.

He considers the possibilities of a fake I.D. but Johnson makes it sound like any name has to be on some approved list before they'll let him in. He wouldn't even know how to go about getting himself on a list like that.

"Oh," he says, his shoulders dropping.

"Yeah, _oh,"_ Johnson repeats with a derisive snort. "Go home, kid. Get some rest."

With a murmured thanks, he turns to leave. Listens to the background chatter with a faint discomfort as he slips out the backdoor and out onto the streets.

As an afterthought, he tears the bandana off from around his neck, tucking it into his pocket instead. He flips the hood up over his head and starts the search for the closest bus stop.


	9. Shootout

Dick had sort of been hoping that tracking that mysterious kid from the alleyway down would at least be easier now that he's not some mysterious kid. Now that he's Jason.

They should be able to find Jason. They _know_ him.

Dick knows which roofs in Crime Alley he climbs up to when he wants to hide from the city, but be able to watch it at the same time. Bruce knows the bodega he still insisted on getting groceries from even after Bruce adopted him. They know the park he sometimes slept in while he was living on the streets, and the café that let Jason hide from the weather inside for as long as he wanted in the winter.

Bruce still makes monthly donations to that one public library Jason loves.

The point is, they know Gotham pretty well. More importantly, they know Jason's Gotham pretty well. Dick thought for sure that would make finding him a cinch.

Apparently they still just don't know those parts of the city as well as Jason does.

So here Dick is, after another whole day of searching, completely empty handed. No one at the bodega even remembers seeing a kid that looks like Jason, and the GCPD beat cop he talks to says no one's been sleeping in the park for months.

Dick retreats to an empty alleyway just as night begins to fall. Maybe Nightwing will have better luck finding Jason than Dick Grayson has.

It's not like he wouldn't be running around the city tonight anyway, he's just going to have to fight crime in between looking for his brother.

The first few hours of patrol go more or less exactly as he expects.

Which is to say boring. Which is not to say that nothing happens, just nothing new happens.

He heroically manages to prevent a case of grand theft bicycle. Stops a couple of muggers from taking some guy's bus pass. And, his person favorite, honest to god helps an old woman get her cat down from a tree.

Dick's actually about to go on comms and complain that he's bored when the sirens whizz past him.

He should've known better. There's never a boring night in Gotham.

He starts after them, tuning his comms in to the police radio just in time to catch, "-ficers Cruz and Montgomery responding to a shots fired on 36th and 10th."

Obviously Dick's not fast enough to follow the route of a speeding cop car on foot. Luckily, he knows a shortcut.

Cars have to follow the path of the road, even if their lights mean they don't have to wait for stop signs or whatever. But running in a straight line across rooftops? That's a real time saver.

He also knows the area.

36th and 10th. That's a cartel hot zone. He and Bruce have been narrowing down on a base of operations in that area, with limited success but he's sure it's around there. This isn't likely to be a coincidence.

He updates Bruce on where he's headed via the comm system, and Bruce is nearby, tells him to call of he needs backup. It's a conversation that's just as standard as the rest of his night's been so far.

And then he makes it to the scene.

Shortcut or no, it looks like he wasn't fast enough to catch an active shooter before they fled.

It looks like there was a chase of some sort. Dick spots two wrecked motorcycles at different ends of the road, although only one of the riders is immediately visible. Legs pinned beneath the bike, where it looks like the front tire is blown out. Dick winces sympathetically as he scans over the rest of the street.

At the other end of the road he spots rider number two. Thrown a good twenty feet or so from their bike. Unconcious on the pavement.

Dick can't tell from here if they're breathing or not.

He maneuvers his way down a fire escape, landing lightly on the sidewalk before sprinting for the second biker.

He's relieved to find they are, in fact, still breathing. Definitely looking a little worse for wear, but he finds a pulse and everything, all good signs. That, and he thinks that second siren in the distance belongs to an ambulance.

Once he's sure this one will be okay until the paramedics arrive, he heads back for the still conscious one.

"I'm gonna help you," he says in approach. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"Fuckers robbed us," the man growls, evidently on instinct, because when he looks up enough to recognize who he's talking to he gets a lot quieter. Says, "You here to help arrest me, _Nightwing?_ They attacked us, I didn't do _shit."_

If the disregarded firearm a few yards off is any indication, that's not entirely true. Dick doubts the man is entirely innocent.

It sounds like they're about to have bigger problems than this asshole though. Like, for example, who in their right mind is going around robbing the cartels. Because the location, the man's style of weaponry and dress, and his attitude all confirm he's cartel.

It could be another cartel, which would mean there's about to be a war going on between them, which is going to mean a lot of work for him and Bruce. Or there are some new players on the scene, which is going to mean a lot of work for him and Bruce.

"Like I said, I'm here to help," he says, refraining from rolling his eyes. "Who attacked you?"

Frankly, this looks more like it was a pursuit than a simple defense. They chased after the robbers, the robbers didn't love being followed. Dick's pretty sure both sides are in the wrong here.

"Hell if I know," the man says helpfully.

Dick moves to lift the fallen bike off of him, just as the sirens are arriving on the scene. The police car pulls sharply around the corner, followed shortly by an ambulance.

The man tries to stand, and Dick moves to either help or stop him, he's not sure yet. The man pushes his hands away, and then can't get up anyway.

"Can you tell me anything about them?" Dick prompts irritably.

"Yeah," the man says. "They were assholes."

Dick gives up questioning him as a pair of EMTs rush over, and he passes the man into their capable hands. The guy's most likely useless anyway. That surveillance camera he spots at the traffic light on the corner, on the other hand....

* * *

In the daylight, he makes his way back out to the Gotham State Peniteniary with a notepad and a pencil borrowed from the old woman down the hall.

He knows better than to try and walk inside again. Johnson was, unfortunately, right. He has no way of getting himself on the visitors list. No way for him to get himself a valid I.D. No way for him to get inside.

Unless he can come up with a way to bypass the visitors list and the identification altogether.

It's not an idea that he's particularly fond of. He sincerely doubts that the weapons the guards carry are simply there for aesthetics. He's not sure he'll even be able to find Willis after he makes it inside, the building is huge and he won't know where to look. And then there's the issue of getting back out once he's talked to Willis.

Simply put, sneaking into the prison is, all things considered, a terribly stupid idea. But it's the only one he's got.

And this is important.

So over the next few hours, he takes up a few non-conspicuous spots within view of the penitentiary. He borrows a fire escape for a little while, it's the best vantage point of all the ones he gets. The bus stop down the street. He even climbs a tree for a bit, which would be suspicious if anyone saw him maybe, but the average person doesn't walk beneath a tree and think to look up for people hiding there.

It's from these spots that he does his best to sketch a quick layout of the penitentiary in his notepad. He leaves a few notes as to where he sees the guards most often, where security cameras are located, and doors and windows.

He doesn't have a watch, but he counts the minutes in his head between guard rotations and he writes that down, too.

It takes a lot longer than he initially expected when he left this morning. At the end of it, he doesn't really feel any better about the idea. He does feel moderately more prepared, and that'll have to do.

He takes the bus back to his apartment.

He's almost expecting to find the man or some other loitering in the hall once more. He's not sure if he's relieved or disappointed to find the place empty.

Once inside, he heads first to his excuse of a kitchen. He hasn't bothered to think about food all day, not with more important things to focus on. But within relatively safe walls, he's suddenly aware of his energy draining. His shoulder still stings, he doesn't think he even did much to aggravate the wound today.

There's a solitary old travel container of soup inside, which should more than suffice. In part because it's the only option. More so, the old woman down the hall cooked it herself. Her cooking is always more pleasant than the meals he buys at the shops.

He sits on the floor in the middle of his apartment and eats the soup while looking over the layout he's sketched.

He attributes the bouncing in his knee to the chill and not nerves. He's not even finished planning yet, he can't be nervous now.

After he's eaten, it's already almost time to leave again, to meet Johnson and his crew.

He buries the notepad beneath the pillow on the floor. He's not sure how much of a need there is for concealing it, he's never had another person inside the apartment and he's not even sure his sketch would make any sense to someone who didn't already know what they were looking at.

But he also wasn't expecting the man to drop by the other day, and the landlord has a key even if they never use it, and it's better, he knows, to be safe.

He's taken to keeping all the things he wants safe beneath that pillow. The two books he actually owns. The newspaper clipping of the Batman, crumpled and torn as it is. And now the notepad. The plans that will lead him, hopefully, to finding out who Jason Todd was. It's all underneath his pillow. It seems more secure than the pocket of his hoodie.

Once he's tucked the notepad away, he shoots a wistful glance out the window, and then it's time to go again.

* * *

It's not until the morning after the cartel robbery that Bruce finds out about it.

Dick never calls for backup after he checks in at the location, and he sends a quick update that he's following a lead, but that's as much as he bothers to tell Bruce that night. They're both busy, between patrols and the search for Jason, Bruce doesn't fault him for not saying anything.

Bruce hears about the details on the news. Like a civilian.

Well, the news doesn't seem aware it was a cartel robbery, that part he hears from Dick later. The news reports on a shootout between a large, dark van and two riders on motorcycles.

Shots were fired on both sides of the disagreement. Until a bullet reportedly took out the front tire of a bike, while the van itself took out the other. Which, ultimately, resulted in the van's mysterious escape before the police or Nightwing could arrive on scene.

Witnesses reported that everyone visible inside of the van wore white bandanas over their faces. The van itself had the plates covered. The bikers are in police custody, and not very talkative on the subject.

It took place in the corner of 36th and 10th.

They show a clip from some nearby security footage before a broadcaster urges anyone with information regarding the shootout to contact either the station or the GCPD.

Bruce calls Dick later on to get the full story.

Dick picks up with a quick, "I was just about to call you. It's Jason."

"You found him?" Bruce says, momentarily forgetting all about the shootout.

"Not exactly," Dick says. "I talked to a shop owner who saw the cartel robbery last night--"

"The what?"

"The shots fired I responded to, 36th and 10th, it was a cartel robbery," Dick clarifies, a little impatiently.

That makes sense with the location, actually, Bruce should have made the connection sooner. There's a more important topic needling at him though, which is, "And Jason was there?"

"Shopkeeper took this photo, hang on, I'll send it your way," Dick says, his voice sounding slightly distant.

A second later Bruce's phone dings, and he glances down at the screen, to a text showing from Dick.

"Got it," he says as he opens the text.

The photo takes a second to download. Even when it does it's grainy and out of focus. Whether that has more to do with the quality of the phone that took it or the speed with which the van was moving isn't totally clear.

What's only moderately more clear is the driver of the van.

He's turned towards the camera, probably looking ahead to make a turn, but it's likely the best image of anyone involved that they're going to get.

It could be anyone. Between the poor quality of the image and the fact he's covered his face with one of those bandanas, it's impossible to confirm an identity.

But it's the right hair. The right height. The right build.

He wishes the photo were in better focus. That they could at least have a clearer image of the driver's eyes. Bruce would know those eyes anywhere.

It's the same red hoodie that he was wearing the first time Dick saw him, in the alleys.

They can't be sure it's Jason. It's dangerous to make assumptions like that. But then...it's Jason. It has to be.

"I've been trying to track that van all night," Dick says, and his tone alone gives away how unsuccessful that venture has proven. "It dropped off the grid in some tunnel."

"It never came out?"

"Not that any camera managed to catch."

"Did you check for maintenance tunnels?"

"Yes, of course I--" Dick starts. But he cuts himself off suddenly, before repeating, almost to himself, "Maintenance tunnels?"

"They're less likely to have surveillance."

"I didn't check for maintenance tunnels."

"Send me the location," Bruce says with a sigh.

They resolve to meet there to take a look in person tonight. Maintenance tunnels don't tend to show up on city maps or blueprints anyway, they'll have the best luck scouting out the van's route on site.

What troubles Bruce more than a van disappearing is what Jason was doing driving it.

That van robbed a cartel.

That's not the sort of trouble he wants Jason getting involved in, certainly not by himself, and certainly not with these people he's apparently aligned himself with. What is he doing robbing cartels? And what is he doing collaborating with a drug ring at all?

They must have something on him. Or they've manipulated him somehow.

But Jason's as stubborn and strong-willed as a kid can get. Whatever they've got on him, it has to be big.

The only thing Bruce can say for sure is Jason's in trouble. They have to get to him before he gets himself in deeper.

He still can't figure out why Jason wouldn't just come to them in the first place.

They'll find their answers when they find Jason.

He just has to make sure they get there soon enough.


	10. Collision Course

He finds out the truth about what exactly Johnson's had him protecting by what he assumes is an accident.

He can't say for sure whether they've been deliberately keeping things from him or not. Their words in regards to business have always been vague, they say things like assets or product without actually telling him what they're transporting. But then, maybe it's just supposed to be obvious and they don't think they need to tell him.

He's also, for that reason, never explicitly asked. Them not telling him might not technically count as deception.

That doesn't do much to make him feel better about it when he finds out. He just feels like an idiot on top of everything else because, in retrospect, it should've been obvious.

He shows up to the old garage to report for whatever work Johnson has him doing tonight, and since no one's in the actual garage part like they usually are, he wanders into the building part of the place. He's never been beyond the garage, it almost feels like he's stepping over some invisible line he's not intended to cross.

There's a small lounge area in the next room. Kurt and the woman are sitting on a couch, the former holding a canned drink, the latter a cigarette. The man sits in an armchair a little ways off, he's smoking too. It's not their usual brand, the smoke smells different, like something from the halls of his apartment building.

He's not sure if he's supposed to knock or not before stepping into the room. The woman saves him from having to figure as much out on his own, spotting him lingering in the doorway and breaking into a grin. She pats the empty cushion at her side and says, "Jason! Come and sit with me."

Kurt offers a quick glare, as if silently willing him not to come sit with them.

With a small shrug, he walks around the couch and takes the seat. He does it more to prove Kurt can't tell him not to, least of all without actually telling him not to, than out of any desire to actually sit with them.

He slightly regrets his choice almost immediately. The woman slings an arm across his neck, drawing him moderately closer. She holds her cigarette out to him with the other hand, prompting, "You smoke, right, kid?"

He tries to be subtle about shrugging her arm away. He's not sure he succeeds, but she doesn't seem offended.

It's not necessarily that he thinks that arm is a threat. He still may not trust her, but by now he's well aware that the woman is one of the only people in this organization not actively plotting against him. Even still, the only hands he's ever known have aimed to hurt, and the proximity of another person's hand at his neck is unsettling at best.

"I'm good," he says, shaking his head.

Something mischievous glints in the man's eye as he says, "C'mon, Jason. What's one smoke?"

"I'm good," he repeats, putting a little more force behind his words.

"It'll help you relax," the woman says sweetly.

The last cigarette he tried did nothing to help him relax. He doesn't think he should relax anyway. It wouldn't be safe, in this present company.

He's still thinking of a way to reject them without explaining that he doesn't really want to relax when the woman takes his hand in hers and passes him her cigarette. As she pulls her hand away once more, she offers him a smile that conveys an innocence she doesn't actually possess.

If only to get them off his back, he rolls his eyes and raises the cigarette to his lips. Inhales.

It's not the same thing the woman gave him the last time she offered him something to smoke.

The sensation of pulling smoke deliberately into his lungs is as oppressive as the first time, however. He doubts this is a normal reaction, because none of the others seem to have the same issue, but for just a moment he feels like running. That memory of cinder and copper that he can't quite get a hold on.

He holds back the cough as he passes it back to her, but he must not manage to keep his face neutral. Kurt rolls his eyes at him, saying, "You'd think you never had a toke before in your life."

"A toke?" he repeats, smothering the momentary spark of unease.

The man smirks, like some suspicion of his has been confirmed. He clarifies, slowly as if addressing a particularly stupid child, "She gave you marijuana, Jason."

The man stresses the syllables of his words, as if to imply they're too big for him to understand otherwise. He's just a little compelled to get up and smack him every time the man uses that tone with him, which is often.

"I know what it is," he snaps defensively.

It's true he didn't immediately recognize it, but he's not, despite what the man might think, an idiot. He might not have all his memories but that doesn't mean he doesn't understand the world around him. In his limited experience though he has only one association with this area, and would frankly rather this not be a part of the world around him.

The woman, for some reason, looks momentarily guilty. She frowns at him and says, almost apologetic, "Shit, do you not smoke pot?"

He shifts uncomfortably under their gazes, partially analytical but largely judgmental. Honesty amongst this group of people hasn't, historically, done him many favors.

Nonetheless, he offers a simple, "No?"

"Oops, sorry," the woman says, mildly amused but mostly sincere. She nudges his side with her elbow and adds, "You should'a said something."

"What're you apologizing for?" Kurt says gruffly.

"He doesn't smoke."

"Kid's been helping us peddle coke for weeks and you think one puff of weed's gonna upset him?"

"You don't know why he doesn't smoke, Kurt."

"Who gives a shit?"

"Y'know, you could really be more understanding..."

They continue to argue, which possibly has less to do with him and more to do with the fact that it's just what they do. Regardless, he's not really listening to them arguing anymore.

It's the first time any of them has actually offered a name for what 'product' it is that Johnson sells. It's a name he's read once before, in the one association he has with the topic of drugs. The article explaining the circumstances of Catherine Todd's death. Of his mother's death.

He's been helping them sell the poison that killed her.

He's going to be sick.

A hand appears on his shoulder, and he's too distracted to pull away from it. The woman's voice appears at his side, gentler than before, saying, "Hey, y'okay?"

"He's fine," Kurt's voice answers before he can. "Get your hand off him."

She sends a dirty look over her shoulder in Kurt's direction, but her hand drops away from his shoulder all the same. She prompts, "What's wrong, Jason?"

"Nothing," he says, giving a firm shake of his head.

"Wait, did you not--" the man starts, cutting himself off with an obnoxious chuckle. He's not sure what he's more irritated by, that the man figured out what he was thinking, or that the man decides to tell the others as if it's some sort of joke. Saying, "He didn't know what this was."

Kurt snorts. The woman frowns, says, "What, for real?"

He forces out a heavy breath, shoving himself off the couch to pace a few steps away as he answers, unconvincingly, "Yes I did."

The man's laughter only continues. A sound he's compelled to cringe away from, at the same time as he's compelled to fight. He does neither, keeping his chin up defiantly.

"So is it genetic with you," the man says, "Or did you take one too many hits to the head as a kid?"

"Shut up."

"What did you _think_ we were selling?"

He never thought to ask. He's been too focused on survival to ask the questions he should have been asking. Johnson doesn't take well to being questioned. Johnson, he learned the hard way, is violent when things aren't done the way he wants them to be.

It's not like he didn't know what they were doing was illegal. It's not like he didn't know a certain degree of trouble came along with accepting Johnson's job offers. He didn't trust them from the beginning.

But they paid well. He needs to eat more than he needed to know what product he was protecting, and he needs money to eat. Money to keep the meagre protection from the elements that he's managed to secure for himself. He wasn't in any position to risk that by asking questions about what was inside the duffel bags or behind the closed doors. He had more pressing questions on his mind anyway.

All that aside, he's infuriated with himself for not seeing it sooner.

He doesn't know what his mother was to him, in Jason Todd's life. Whether she was a protective figure like the woman in blue, a comforting presence like the old woman down the hall. For all he knows, she was a quiet yet solid threat like Johnson, an association born of necessity rather than any affection.

That last one doesn't feel true.

Regardless, he knows at least through stories what a mother is supposed to be. Knows the product Johnson has a hand in spreading throughout the city will take that away from more children than Jason Todd.

He can't be any part of that.

"Jason?" the woman's voice asks, tentative and, if he didn't know any better, concerned.

He leaves the room as quickly as he can.

His intention is to leave the garage entirely. Hope they just forget about him once he's gone, and maybe he can go back to his construction job. He'll take anything over this.

He's so focused on leaving that he's not paying attention to the actual action of doing it. He walks directly into Johnson before he even notices that Johnson is there, their shoulders knocking heavily into one another. He doesn't intend to stop and apologize, or say anything at all for that matter, only Johnson stops him with a hand on his chest.

"Whoah, slow down there, kid," Johnson says, suspicious behind a cover of casual. "Where you headed?"

"I"m done," is all he says. It's all he trusts himself to say.

The hand on his chest shoves him, forcing him to stumble back a few steps, until he's back in front of Johnson. A glare is all he offers to indicate his disapproval of the treatment. He knows well enough that anything else Johnson would only return in double.

Johnson arches an eyebrow and echoes with curiosity, "Done?"

Behind him he hears approaching footsteps. Kurt and the man and the woman following to see where he's going to. He ignores them.

"I quit," he spits, shoving Johnson's hand off of him.

He's expecting some sort of retaliation for that. Instead Johnson frowns at him, says, "What d'you wanna do that for?"

"Jason here didn't know he was dealing drugs," the man says with a snort. Apparently he still finds this funny.

The voice sounds nearer than the footsteps had lead him to believe, and his shoulders tense, suddenly aware of how trapped he is in a hallway like this one. With Johnson in front and the others behind. It does nothing to quell the fire building up in his ribs. If anything it only fans it.

"You didn't know?" Johnson says. Skeptical and moderately amused.

"You did," he snarls back, taking a step closer. "You know exactly what you're doing."

Something flickers across Johnson's face and he mirrors the step. He's reminded of how much taller than him Johnson is. Johnson looks down on him and says, almost like a warning, "Sounds like you're accusin' me of somethin'."

"You know what it does to people. What it did to my mom," he says. Then, not liking how vulnerable the word makes him sound he adjusts, "To Catherine. And you sell it anyway."

Understanding dawns on Johnson's expression, but that understanding doesn't soften his features.

"Boy, I didn't kill Cathy. Cathy killed Cathy," Johnson says. "It ain't my fault she didn't know how much she could handle."

He doesn't know what it will change, but he asks, "Did you sell it to her?"

"Gave her a family discount too, I'm real nice like that," Johnson answers.

Either unaware of the damage he's responsible for, or simply uncaring. It doesn't matter the reasoning behind his tone, ignorance or apathy. It's the final log thrown onto the fire.

His fist is colliding with Johnson's nose before he even knows what he's doing.

No sooner has he hit Johnson than he's moving to dodge past him, towards the other end of the hallway. He's not fast enough, and Johnson pushes him back again, this time with a grip around his throat. With that grip Johnson positions him back in front of him, and strikes him harshly across the face.

That much seems fair retaliation for the blow he was first to deliver, but Johnson doesn't stop there. Hits him once more and then there's something heavy slamming into his stomach, hard enough to knock his breath out of him.

That breath was quickly fleeting anyway, with Johnson's fist around his neck. Not tight enough to prevent him from taking in air altogether, but tight enough to spur the instinct that he get away from the situation at all costs.

He attempts to pry Johnson's hand away with his own, and that failing, grabs ahold of one of Johnson's fingers and jerks it back with as much force as he can muster. The result is a resounding crack and an enraged shout from Johnson, who throws him forcibly into the wall.

"Stop it!" the woman shouts, although which of them she is shouting at he's unclear.

He hits the wall and from there hits the floor. He's quick to push himself back up onto his knees at least, but Johnson's apparently quicker. There's a knee connecting with his jaw before he's even all the way up.

"You're done, is that it?" Johnson asks from above him.

"Yes," he says, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

This is apparently not the correct answer, but it's an answer he plans on sticking to nonetheless. Even when Johnson grabs a fistful of his hair and pulls him up that way.

"Jason," he says, voice low and threatening. "You ain't done 'till I say you are."

It feels stupid for clinging to now, but that wasn't their arrangement. He says, "You said I could quit at any time. I quit."

"Yeah, that was before. Ya know too much now to just go, 'specially with this one," he says, nodding to indicate the man over his shoulder. "Tellin' me that you and Batman are on a first name basis."

"I knew it," Kurt interjects vindictively.

This isn't fair. The man wasn't supposed to mention it to Johnson. He never explicitly promised not to, and such a promise would be unreliable anyway. But he wasn't expecting the man to betray him quite so soon. He would have prepared for it in advance.

He doesn't know Batman, he doesn't even know how Batman knows him. He couldn't tell Batman how Johnson's organization operates if he wanted to. He couldn't be a spy or a traitor if he wanted to. It isn't fair.

"Now," Johnson says, tightening the grip on his hair, patronizing and cruel, "Do ya wanna leave 'cause of what happened to your mommy, or 'cause you figured out your cover was blown to shit?"

"I'm not a spy," he says. If he was a spy, surely Batman would be competent enough not to refer to him by name in front of the others.

"I'm your fucking family, boy. What's the Bat to you?"

He wishes he knew.

"You killed my family," he answers, with a conviction that likely does nothing to persuade them of his innocence.

"Ever think maybe Cathy knew takin' that much would kill her, and she did it anyway to get away from you?" Johnson challenges. He doesn't entirely manage to suppress the wince at Johnson's suggestion. Then, "Quit pretendin' like this is about her, and tell me how much you've told Batman already."

He considers explaining that he hasn't told Batman anything.

He even considers explaining why he hasn't told Batman anything. That it's not out of any fidelity owed to Johnson and his crew, and simply because he doesn't remember how Batman knows who he is. Doesn't remember anything.

But he knows before he's even opened his mouth that they'll never believe him.

The man and Kurt have been against him from the start, they'll find any reason to get rid of him and they'll find any hole in his story. And his story is bound to be full of holes, because gaps and nothing are all he has. The woman seems to like him more, but she's not willing to defend him beyond asking Johnson to stop. He doesn't think he would want her to, anyway.

And Johnson. Johnson claims they're family. Johnson strikes him without a shine of remorse.

He can't trust a single person in this hallway to fight for him. So he resolves himself to fight for himself. He's used to it by now.

He swishes around the blood that's been collecting in his mouth and spits it in Johnson's face. Shocks him enough that Johnson lets go of his hair, reels back to wipe the spit from his cheek.

While Johnson's distracted, he brings a swift fist to his jaw. The other just as quick as an uppercut to his chin.

He doesn't get more than those two hits in before the others are intervening. A hand grabs at his elbow, as if to hold him back. Rather than struggle against the grip he moves his arm with it, until he feels his elbow connecting with person. Only then does he jerk his arm free.

He dodges the next hit from Johnson. When fighting men like Johnson, bigger than him and stronger too, he's learned that speed is his best ally.

He ducks around Johnson's side, hitting him hard in the stomach as he does. Then it's a foot to the back of the knee, and Johnson's leg buckles. Kurt lunges forward in an attempt to catch him, slowed momentarily by the woman's hand on his wrist but he shrugs her off with ease.

"Little shit," Kurt hisses, catching a hold of the back of his shirt and pulling him backwards.

Once he's closer, Kurt releases the fabric in favor of hooking an arm around his neck.

He squirms out of the hold with ease compared to Johnson's earlier grasp. All he has to do is put a hand over Kurt's forearm and drop to one knee, leaning forward as quick as he can as he does and effectively launching Kurt over his back and onto the floor.

He moves to run past Kurt on the floor, and as he does a hand wraps around his ankle. He stumbles but doesn't fall. Shakes his leg free and keeps running.

The crack of a single gunshot rings out in the air.

He isn't hit. Nor does he wait around to be hit. He slips through the door without turning to see who fired it.

When he makes it to the actual garage the first thing he does is slam a hand down on the button on the wall, the one that's for opening the garage doors. He's never thought of the door mechanics as particularly slow until now.

The man left his keys on the toolbench. The man always leaves his keys on the toolbench.

He snatches them and sprints for the other end of the garage, and he's halfway there when he realizes the man's keys are not for a car. They're for a bike. The man rides a bike.

"Shit," he says to himself, sending a frantic look back over his shoulder.

The man and Johnson have made it to the door by now. Johnson's the one holding the gun.

It shouldn't still get to him that it's his uncle firing bullets at him and yet for some reason it does. Not that he has the time right now for getting upset about a stupid thing like that.

He eyes the bike a few feet away from him.

"Don't you fucking dare," the man growls.

Johnson raises the gun towards him as he snags the helmet off its place on the seat, pulling it over his head.

He doesn't see another option. He swings a leg over the side of the bikes, ducks low as the gunshot cracks through the air, and deciphers just how to start the bike as quick as he can.

It becomes increasingly clear he has no idea how to drive a motorcycle as he hurls himself towards the garage door.

It's not like driving a car. Not even remotely. And he hasn't done any research before hand on the workings of the bike, he can only guess what to do based on what he's seen the man do. He wishes he'd been paying better attention.

As it is, he only advances a few yards before discovering, quite by accident, how to work the brakes. The bike skids, and it's only by luck he manages not to fall off or tip over then and there.

"Jason, get the hell off my bike!"

He takes a hand off the handlebars just long enough to flick the visor of the helmet down over his eyes, and then he drives the bike straight through the garage door. Does his best to ignore the shouting and the gunfire and focus on not falling off the bike.

Actually, he kind of likes it.

The speed is daunting and also exhilarating. The air, he thinks, is far more freeing than the dirt.

Once he figures out that the right side is for working the brakes, the left for the gears and the clutch, it starts to get easier. At no point is it easy, but it's easier. His main focus goes into maintaining his balance.

As he begins to pick up speed he feels, for the first time he can remember, maybe for the first time ever, a smile begin to pull at the corners of his lips.

It doesn't last very long.

He's nearing the section of street where he's either going to have to turn or stop, or he risks getting hit by oncoming cars. He does not know how turn, nor how to slow down enough to stop. He does not know whether he's supposed to turn or stop at this intersection and he's very quickly running out of time to figure it out.

There's a car following him, he becomes aware.

He's going to have to risk driving straight through the intersection. He doesn't have time to think of something better.

He doesn't want to go back to the box. Not yet. He's not ready.

Someone blares their horn at him as the bike flies through the intersection. He's distantly aware of a car skidding to a stop, mere feet before colliding with him. He thinks he hears a crash behind him, and he can only hope Johnson's car is involved.

He doesn't hazard a glance behind him to find out, but the thought is distracting nonetheless.

He spots the oncoming taxi a second too late, jerks the handlebars to the side, desperately willing the bike to turn before he can hit anything. It turns, but it turns too hard, too fast.

The next thing he's aware of, he's on the sidewalk. He's got one ankle trapped beneath the rear tire, and his body screaming at him for being so reckless, and he'll be grateful later that he thought to grab the helmet. Later.

Right now he has to go. The man and Kurt are piling out of one of the wrecked cars in the intersection, scanning the streets, he knows, in search of him.

He takes in the deepest breath he can and shoves the bike off his ankle. He gets up. He stumbles first but stubbornly regains his footing.

Once he's on his feet he tears the helmet back off, dropping it to the ground.

He winces at any weight put on his foot, but nothing feels broken and it can still move, so he puts his weight on it all the same. Limps the first few steps until he develops a tolerance for the pain and then picks up into a poor excuse for a run.

He thinks he tore the wound on his shoulder back open but he can't be sure.

He doesn't know how far he makes it before he realizes he doesn't know where he's going. He can't go back to his apartment. They know his address.

He doesn't think he can walk that far like this anyway.

But he can't stay here.

He has to go someplace safe. There is no place that's safe.

He grits his teeth and keeps running.

* * *

It turns out there were two different maintenance tunnels that the van might have disappeared through. Two different routes, and from there an infinite number of paths it may have taken to hide away from Gotham City.

It takes them three nights worth of work between tracking down and scanning surveillance footage and researching possible locations in the area outside of security coverage, but Dick and Bruce are finally able to track the van down to an abandoned old auto repair shop.

Dick has to admit he's only half listening while Bruce walks him through the plan again.

For one thing, this is the third time they've gone over the plan tonight. For another, his focus is on the garage. Jason might be in there and he might not be, but it's the first solid location they've got on him. At the very least, someone in there will know where to find him.

"Got it?" Bruce is asking.

It takes Dick a second to recognize he's being asked a question, and then he nods, "Got it."

"You weren't listening, were you?"

"Can we get Jason now?"

Bruce sighs but otherwise doesn't bother to remind Dick that's not the whole plan. They don't even know for sure if Jason's there.

They're supposed to sweep the building and, if Jason's there, get him out with minimal detection. If he's not, they need to see if they can find out where he is without tipping anyone off. They don't want to risk these people hurting Jason before they can get to him.

Basically they're not supposed to engage. They're just bugging the place if they can't find any hints to Jason's location.

Dick hates the plan.

If you ask him, it's kind of stupid to just leave if Jason's not around. They could get someone inside to tell them where he is, Dick knows they could. And if Jason's in danger with these people, he doesn't see any reason they should let him spend a second longer with them than he has to.

But Bruce, he will admit, has a point.

They don't know what these people have on Jason, that he's willing to work for them. They don't know how big of a threat they are. That's the point of surveillance.

Bruce drops off the roof they've been observing the garage from, and Dick's quick to follow. Across the street they split up, Bruce making his way around to the front entrance while Dick slips in through the mechanical garage door. Someone left it open, which might mean nobody's home. It also might just mean the ACs busted and it's a hot summer night.

He keeps to the shadows as best as the room will allow, scanning his surroundings until he's sure he's alone.

There's a bullet hole in the right side wall. It probably isn't unrelated, but skid marks from what had to be a motorcycle decorate the cement of the garage floor. Someone left here in a hurry.

He's glad any bullets fired seem to have missed. There's no sign of blood anywhere on the ground.

He lets Bruce know through the comms that the garage is empty, it looks like there was a fight, and then he moves to the open door. The wood of the doorframe is chipped, that looks like a bullet as well. His stomach flips when he realizes they could have been firing at Jason.

There are some small flecks of blood on the floor. Nothing from a gunshot wound. A small, minor injury, at worst a nosebleed.

There's a faint shuffling noise in the next closest room and he follows it. Peers cautiously around the corner until he spots a woman on a couch in the center of the room.

She's alone. Knees tucked up to her chest and smoking a cigarette. The ashtray on the coffee table and the faint scent in the air hold evidence of other things having been smoked here, but in her hands is just a tobacco cigarette.

A small bruise has formed on her cheek, and it looks like her mascara has been smudged from crying.

Dick knows he's not supposed to engage with anyone in the building, but he also doubts she's a threat. And she probably knows the story behind those bullet holes in the walls.

He edges slowly into the doorway, clearing his throat to alert her of his presence.

She flinches all the same. Then her shoulders sag with a resigned sigh, and she says, "Crap."

"Hello to you too," he says, taking a small step nearer. She doesn't make any effort to run she just takes another drag of the cigarette.

"If you're gonna arrest me, can you just wait until I've finished my cigarette? It's been a night."

"I'm not here for you," Dick answers honestly.

He doubts her complete innocence, but he also doesn't get the impression she's the mastermind behind any of this. And besides, he's technically not even supposed to be talking to her.

She looks at him skeptically, and he adds, "If you didn't see me, I didn't see you. Sound good?"

"Sure. Is Batman with you?"

"No," he answers less honestly. Some of the tension drops out of her shoulders so he imagines it's the right call. He says, "Can you tell me what happened?"

"Why should I?"

"Maybe I can help."

She snorts derisively, flicking some ash off the end of her cigarette. Says, "I don't need any."

There's something in her tone. He prompts, "But you know someone who does."

She's quiet a second, considering, and then she says, "You're here for Jason, aren't you?"

"You know where he is?"

"Ya just missed him," she says with a sigh, leaning her head back against the couch and casting her gaze up to the ceiling. He catches her glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, and then she asks, "He workin' for you and the Bat after all?"

Dick frowns.

He's not sure why she's asking. Whether she's somehow figured out his identity as the second Robin, or maybe she thinks they know him some other way. Since he can't be sure, he figures it's best not to confirm anything. Besides, Jason never worked for them, he worked with them.

He shakes his head and says, "No. I just need to talk to him."

"Ya might not get the chance," she says, lifting her head back up. "I told 'em he wasn't a spy, they didn't listen."

"Who? Where did they take him?"

"They didn't take him anywhere, he stole a bike," she says, almost like she finds it funny. The humor is gone when she adds, "They went after him, though. And they ain't been back."

That explains the bullet holes. And the tire tracks.

Dick didn't even know Jason knew how to drive a motorcyle.

"How long ago?"

"Couple hours."

She says it with the sort of resignation that indicates this isn't the first time she's sat on this couch while her companions were on a mission she didn't agree with. He wonders if that's the story behind the bruise on her cheek.

And the Jason he knows has never been one to run from anything. He faces everything head on, no matter how ill-advised that might be. That, combined with the bullet holes in the walls, fills him with a new sense of urgency that they find Jason and they find him now.

"Do you know which way they went?"

"That way's all I got," she says, pointing vaguely left.

Dick takes off for the exit, switching his comms on to tell Bruce, "I got a lead on Jason, he's in trouble, we have to hurry."

* * *

He runs until he's sure he's not being followed and then he runs some more. His feet ache. The muscles in his legs ache. His shoulders ache. As the adrenaline begins to fade it becomes more and more difficult to ignore the myriad of weights pulling on his limbs. Everything feels heavy and sharp and too much.

He's not sure how far he runs or for how long. He slows to a walk until he slows to something far more sluggish than a walk.

He doesn't know where he is exactly, but he's been here before. Probably transferred buses or something at the bus stop on the other end of the street.

This part of the city is quieter, which maybe has more to do with the hour than the block itself. He can hear the city noises as ambient sound, distant sirens and car horns honking and for a second some faint music as a car passes by with the windows down. But he looks up and spots a park and it's totally empty.

He still doesn't know of a place he can go and he's tired and empty is maybe the closest to safe he's going to get. He has to accept it.

Beneath the glow of a streetlight, he stops in his path. Takes a second to examine the hurt. he's collected. Sleep is less important than stopping anything from bleeding.

He touches a hand to the split in his lower lip and winces, but his fingertips don't come away red and he takes it as a good sign. There's a tear in his pantleg from crashing the bike, some of the skin is scraped from his right knee. The blood doesn't come heavy as it once did. He presses the sleeve of his flannel against it for a few minutes until the bleeding stops.

He's unwilling to investigate the old wound in his arm. It refuses to heal no matter what he does. He can feel his sleeve clinging to his arm where it's torn open again.

He finds the bandana in his pocket and ties it around his upper arm, over the flannel sleeve, to staunch the bleeding. It's a difficult task with one hand, but he yanks the end of the knot tighter with his free hand and his teeth. Only once he's confident it's secure does he cast his gaze back to the park, in search of the safest place to sleep.

He knows he shouldn't sleep here but he can't will himself to walk any further.

The tunnel slide is covered enough that he doubts anyone would find him there. It's also a small space. Escape would be difficult if someone did find him. He moves on.

The platform above the slides. It's covered by a heavy plastic awning, and guarded by short bars of fence, presumably to prevent falling. He would still be visible, but only to someone looking, and it has at least two exits. The ladder for getting up or the slide itself. Should need call for it, he could even vault over the fence. It's not a terribly fall drop.

It's the only option available.

He climbs the ladder, careful to make sure there's no one observing him. Presses himself into the corner furthest from the ladder entrance and lays down.

Sleeping out here in the open feels too vulnerable. The security of a box would be nice right about now, guarded at all sides, if buried beneath the earth. No risk of being found.

He curls his knees in closer to his chest and tells himself it's only for a short while. Then he'll wake up and find someplace safer. First he has to rest a bit, just enough to get his energy back. It's only for a short while.

Against all of his instincts, his limbs begin to relax. His eyes slide shut.


	11. Footprints

Bruce only manages to get a brief sweep and a partial bugging of the auto repair shop done before Dick calls him away, saying that Jason's in trouble. This turns out to be in their favor as the night goes on because, trouble or no, Jason somehow remains as elusive as he was before.

At first, it's easy to follow the path he took.

The skid marks from the car that must've been tailing him leave an obvious trail. Then there's the wrecked motorbike off the side of the nearest intersection, which is a pretty damn clear indicator of which way Jason must have gone. Just what he was thinking is beyond Bruce, though.

The kid knows he can't drive a bike. He also knows, or so Bruce thought, better than to get mixed up in a criminal group like this without any sort of backup. Without anything resembling an exit plan, so he doesn't have to resort to stealing a bike he can't drive. Bruce doesn't know for sure that Jason didn't have a plan that went wrong, and that this route isn't a last resort.

He also doesn't know that Jason didn't have backup, and it just wasn't them. He can't think of anyone else Jason could've gone to though, nor can he wrap his head around why Jason's alive, or why he wouldn't come to them immediately.

In short, Bruce has far more questions than he does answers. It's not a feeling he's used to, and he likes it even less.

A closer look at where the bike crashed finds a semi decent blood trail they can follow. It's minimal, a few specks here or there on the concrete, a streak where he must've bumped into the wall while he was running--which indicates a shoulder wound, not bleeding enough to be terribly dangerous but enough that Bruce is worried anyway.

Dick had said there wasn't any indication at the scene that any shorts fired there actually hit anything more than furniture. Therefore the existence of a blood trail means one of two things; either Jason hurt himself in the crash, or one or more of his pursuers managed to catch up with him.

He and Dick manage to track Jason the course of exactly one city block before losing the path at a quiet intersection.

The fact that there's no further blood trail at any end of the intersection doesn't tell them anything, unfortunately. Because it could mean the bleeding slowed enough not to leave a sign. Could mean he just caught a cab or a bus or some other form of transport here. It could also mean somebody took him.

The only thing Bruce knows for sure is that, whatever trouble they already thought Jason was in, it just seems to get deeper and deeper.

"Those cameras must've caught something," Dick says, indicating the traffic cams at either end of the intersection.

It's more than likely that they did. Only, they might not have time to wait around for Alfred to be able to pull it up. The longer they wait the further away from them Jason gets.

They pass the address off to Alfred over comms and while he's searching, Bruce sighs and says, "In the meantime, we should split up. You take that end, I'll take this one, and we can double back when Agent A finds anything."

Eventually Alfred's able to trace his path another few buildings down the road before the trail goes cold again. Dick and Bruce meet back up at an alleyway not unlike every other alleyway in Gotham, except that Jason apparently took a shortcut through this one before effectively dropping off of the grid.

"B, what if they grabbed him?"

"There aren't any signs of a struggle," Bruce says, surveying the alley a third time for anything he's missed. Frankly, there's no physical evidence here at all that Jason passed through here.

He glances towards the other end of the alley and weighs the options.

Jason could've gone straight through it and they wouldn't know, there's no surveillance at that side of the road that would've picked him up. But he also could've taken that unlatched door through the back of some restaurant, or, with his training, managed to scale the wall up to the rooftops, via windows and some sturdy piping along the outer wall.

The rooftops seem the most reasonable, if he's running from low level drug dealers and needs a quick getaway. They wouldn't've been able to follow him up there, and he'd be harder to track through the rest of the city. But his shoulder's hurt, and it's likely he got some other injuries in crashing the bike, and Bruce can't say for sure he would've been able to scale the wall.

Through the door or straight through the alley lead roughly the same way, one faster, one with more cover. Only if he cut through the restaurant, if there are any employees even still inside at this hour, they might've seen him.

The sun's already beginning to rise by the time any of them are willing to admit there's nothing more they can do. Not from here, at any rate.

They have to head back to the Batcave to regroup. They're not doing anything for Jason from out here, and if Jason ever was here, he's long gone by now anyway.

It's probably the first time in Bruce's career as the Batman that the sun is already well in the sky by the time he makes it back to the Cave. And Alfred doesn't even have any playfully judgmental remarks about it, either, which doesn't do anything for his nerves.

There's something off here, he just can't place it.

Dick said those people were after Jason because they thought he was a spy. Not a narc, a spy. Who would he even be spying for? Who do they think he is?

But that's not all that doesn't add up. Because for someone to think Jason's infiltrating their organization, that would have to mean they weren't manipulating him into being there in the first place. And if Jason's not working for them because of blackmail or a threat of some sort, if Jason's not there because he absolutely has to be, then what the hell is he doing there?

"What's going on at the garage?" Bruce asks, approaching one of the monitors in the Cave.

Among other things, Alfred's been monitoring the bugs they left. He wishes he'd been able to do a more efficient job of placing them now. As it is, they're relying on any relevant information being communicated in the front of the auto shop.

"Quiet, for the moment," Alfred says with a noncommittal shrug. "As of yet, I haven't heard the woman Master Dick spoke with informing anyone of either of your presences there."

"She wants us to find Jason before they do," Dick says, folding his arms.

"Would she be willing to help us?"

They don't have much of a way of knowing how long Jason's been working with these people. However long it is, it might've been enough for her to get to know him, at least a little. And their search so far has only proven that their understanding of Jason is, evidently, outdated.

"Yeah, maybe," Dick says. "I can talk to her."

Although, in the end, Dick doesn't have to talk to her.

There's some argument on the matter, but eventually the three of them work out an alternating schedule to monitor the listening devices, that way in between they can each get at least a little bit of rest. Bruce, and he doubts he's alone in this, doesn't particularly feel like resting. Not knowing Jason's still out there somewhere, probably alone and probably hurt.

But wherever he is, he's safe enough that the criminals they know are after him can't find him. And they'll have more luck with the search when they pick it back up if they have the energy to do it.

It's a good few hours or so before any of the listening devices pick up anything useful. One of them catches, just barely, a conversation about their own search for Jason. Which, Bruce realizes with no small degree of relief, means that they haven't found him yet either.

It's somewhat distance, but he can hear a voice. Most likely the guy in charge, going by how he addresses the room. And he's instructing a few of the others to camp out outside of Jason's apartment, just in case he decides to head back there for whatever reason.

If Jason knows these people know where he lives, it doesn't seem all that likely he'll head back there.

But then, Bruce also would've doubted that Jason would give the address he's staying at to a criminal drug ring. Anything's possible, and boy is that kid going to have some explaining to do when they finally do find him.

Anyway, they only catch the first half of an address before the speaker moves out of range of their bug. Which isn't, initially, enough for them to find it. It is enough for them to start working on finding it.

Bruce opens up a map of Gotham. The city seems impossibly big, even more so than usual, when trying to find a location with only the first half of an address.

But there's only so many neighborhoods Jason could be staying in without causing suspicion from his new colleagues. Without significant resources, a decent false identification would be hard to come by too, and he can narrow it down to buildings sketchy enough not to notice they have a legally dead kid for a tenant. Places that don't ask for names anyway, more than likely. Places Jason could afford on his own, somehow.

The overlap of those is actually a lot of neighborhoods in Gotham. However, only about three of them offer apartment buildings that work with the half an address Bruce has.

He wakes up Dick, and they divvy up the buildings between them. Each of them take one, and whoever finds theirs empty first is to go to option number three.

* * *

He wakes up to city noise and it's not that abnormal, nor is the ground he sleeps on being cold and hard. What is abnormal is the sound of voices in his near proximity.

He's awake all of three seconds before he remembers where he fell asleep last night, and in the instant he realizes it he jolts upright, read to either fight or flee.

The movement disturbs something around his ribs, and he doesn't quite manage to suppress the wince. His limbs feel sore. He supposes he shouldn't be all that surprised. Just grateful he woke up outside and not in a box.

A quick glance around shows him the voices. A pair of middle aged women, one of them with a small dog on a leash, both of them with cigarettes. Fight or flight aren't particularly called for in this instance, and he lets himself relax some, but not altogether. He might not be in immediate danger, but that doesn't mean he's safe either.

It's early morning. He can tell by the sun and the quiet of the park.

It's about time he find somewhere else to go.

He doesn't know where to go from here. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do now.

He can't go back to his apartment, just pick up a new construction job and move on with this thing he calls his life. He can't go to the garage. He doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know anything.

He wishes he'd been able to talk to Willis. A father would be able to tell him what to do. Wouldn't he?

His shoulders feel heavy, and he doesn't know if it's actually a physical sensation or just the sudden weight of his aloneness hitting him. Last night he severed the only ties he's managed to build since climbing up from the box.

Well, there's the old woman from down the hall. But she doesn't even know his real name. And besides, he can't see her again, since he can't walk that hall again.

He lets out a heavy breath and pushes himself up, climbing steadily down the ladder and back to the ground.

He thinks maybe he does have to walk that hall again, just once more.

He knows he can't go back. He knows they know his address and it isn't safe there and he'll have to say goodbye to the old woman down the hall and watching the city from the fire escape and the area he's come to actually know.

But his books are back there. And his plan to get to Willis. And some cash that he's stashed away, and maybe some food in the fridge for at least one meal. Two, if he rations.

He'll be careful, he just has to risk one quick visit.

* * *

Dick knows they're not exactly expecting to find Jason at any of these buildings. They know it's not likely Jason would go back there, even if they don't know what Jason's thinking right now, it's not likely anyone would in these circumstances.

They might find some clues as to what Jason's been up to though, where he could be if not there.

Dick's also not opposed to 'accidentally' running into whoever might be there waiting for Jason, and kicking their collective asses.

He and Bruce discussed it, and they're going to try not to engage unless they have to. They don't want to give away that they're onto these guys and risk them finding the bugs or even panicking and changing locations. They could lose their only source of intel.

It's a nice thought, anyway.

The apartment building Dick checks out is, to be honest, crap.

It's not the worst the city has to offer, though. Jason would know. He spent long enough on the streets.

There's a nondescript car parked out front with a pair of men smoking inside of it, windows rolled down. It could be the men sent to watch Jason's place, it could just be a pair of smokers. Dick can't be sure, but he avoids being spotted by them all the same.

Their eyes are on the front door. Dick heads round to the side of the building and climbs up the fire escape instead.

The window's been left open by about a half an inch. It doesn't show any signs of having been tampered with. Nobody else is here who shouldn't be, somebody just forgot to close it.

Or at least, that's his first best guess. The inside tells a different story.

It's an upsetting place to take in, knowing it's where Jason's been staying for the past who knows how long. The place is all but empty. Not in the nobody home sense, but quite literally empty.

There's not a single piece of furniture in the place, apart from a gently humming old relic of a fridge. He's fairly certain that's mold growing in the far corner of the kitchen. Somebody left the lights on and he's surprised to find they don't flicker.

A heap of blankets piled up in the corner make up something resembling a bed, with one single pillow tossed to the side.

All of which he only takes the time to register after taking the time to notice the bloody bootprints left behind on the floor. They trail from the door towards the window, and Dick starts to wonder if he's the only one who's been using the fire escape to get in and out without being spotted.

Because, going by the size of the footprints, Jason's been back here.

"Jason, what are you doing?" Dick asks the empty air, stepping tentatively further inside.

The blood has long dried. Jason hasn't been here for at least an hour, probably more. He left in a hurry, but he left, Dick's fairly sure, in one piece.

There wasn't any blood on the windowsill or out on the fire escape, which means he probably patched whatever it was up before leaving.

He lets Bruce know over comms that he thinks he's got the right place, and then, with little hope of finding anything, pokes around inside for another minute.

The fridge is empty aside from a carton of eggs, with two eggs left inside of it. Dick doesn't get the impression that's totally thanks to Jason vacating the place. There's next to no signs of any dishes or containers in the place.

Dick shuts the fridge door behind him and ventures carefully out into the hallway.

The bootsteps track down to the left. Starting, Dick realizes, not at the stairwell but at the door of another apartment. A door hanging open.

Careful to avoid muddling the footsteps, Dick passes through the hallway towards the open door. Follows the steps inside, and he doesn't have to go much further. The blood in the steps, he realizes, does not belong to Jason after all.

He wishes it were a relief.

It's futile and he knows it but he drops to the old woman's side on instinct anyway to check for a pulse.

She's long dead. The bullet lodged in her stomach tells the story pretty clearly. He doesn't know if they planned to kill her or if they were just here for Jason and she opened her door at the wrong time, but he knows it's no coincidence this woman is dead the same day those men came here for Jason.

"B," Dick says into the comms. "Get over here now."

The answer comes almost instantly. "Is it Jason? Did you find him?"

"No, I found one of his neighbors. She's dead, B. Jason was here, I think--I think he tried to help her."

That's the only way he can think to explain the handprint smeared on the side of her neck. An attempt to stop the bleeding and then either checking the pulse or something meant to be a comforting gesture.

Dick doesn't know for sure the timing of events. There was no sign in the apartment anywhere that Jason ran into her killers.

A shot to the stomach can bleed for a long time, though. Jason probably saw her die.

Bruce's next reply takes a second longer. When it comes it's just a curt, "I'm on my way."


	12. Wash

Under the relative cover of the first public restroom he's able to find, he washes his hands.

He's not sure who's looking for him at this point. He'd only realized he could conceal the red stains on his hands by burying them in his pockets after a woman stopped to ask him if he'd been hurt, about a half a block away from the apartment that's no longer his. He can't remember what he said to her, frantic to get away as he was.

If she's sensible she's called the police by now. He knows what the blood on his hands looks like, combined with his hurry to disappear.

The blood on his hands.

It won't come off. He doesn't remember any of his own blood being this difficult to wash away, but scrub as he might it just sticks. Vibrant and wet and unrelenting.

The faucet water is scalding hot, in the way public faucet water is always either scalding hot or freezing cold, with little in between. It burns his hands and still he scrubs and still he sees it. Staining his flesh like a vicious ink. Swirling away down the drain even as it refuses to go.

She'd already been shot when he got there. They were already gone when he got there.

If he'd got there sooner. Maybe he could have stopped them. Maybe they would've found no need to harm her if they'd found him like they wanted to. Maybe if he hadn't run in the first place, and then they'd never have come looking for him. 

They'd been inside his apartment. He imagines she must've caught them. Opened her door to investigate a noise in the hall, as she was wont to do at any unusual sound.

If he'd just said no to Johnson's job offer at the beginning.

If he hadn't accepted the old woman's kindness.

He flinches as the light above him flickers momentarily. Looks up at the latched door to his right, half expecting someone to bang on the door. Someone's found him. Johnson and his crew. The police. The Batman.

Nobody bangs on the door.

With a shuddering breath he returns his attention to the sink. The burning water has gone from lukewarm to almost cold by the time he realizes the blood that remains belongs only to his imagination. He switches the faucet hastily off once more, pulling a few too many paper towels down from the dispenser and dropping still more on the floor as he dries his hands.

His hands.

They won't stop shaking. He wills them to stop with as much focus as he can muster and then begins to wonder, when they do not stop, if they even belong to him. His own limbs are meant to do what he wills them.

It's his fault the old woman is dead.

He knows it as strongly as he knows that it is also Johnson's fault the old woman is dead. And Kurt, and the man, and everyone else working beneath Johnson's instruction whose names and personalities he did not learn.

He should have known they wouldn't stop at hurting people with only their poison.

He did know, he realizes. He witnessed it that very first night he met Kurt and his friend. They were hurting that kid. They would have hurt him, if he'd let them. He just ignored that because he wanted answers. He can't believe how bad he wanted answers. How bad he still wants them.

The person he was before, would Jason Todd have stopped this? Would he have helped them do it? He doesn't know.

He claps a hand over his mouth to prevent the shout he feels building up in his lungs. And then he remembers the blood and, although it is gone, can't help but tear his hand away with disgust.

He can hear one of the trains pulling into the station outside, the ground rattles softly with it. The people outside, passing by without a hint of anything. The light flickers once more and although he doesn't remember sustaining any injuries to his lungs, he realizes he's finding it harder and harder to breathe.

He braces himself against the edge of the sink with a familiar lack of confidence in his own legs. Reaches out to turn the faucet back on, and his hand misses the tap the first time, and he's splashing the water onto his face as if that will change anything at all.

Poke the bruise.

"Jason Todd," he says to the drain at the bottom of the sink. His eyes squeeze shut against the world around him. "Ally and friend."

The hand clenched tight around the edge of the sink, at least, does not shake. He brings the other to join it on the opposite end and repeats the words, "Jason Todd. Ally and friend. Jason Todd. Jason...Jas..."

The mantra is aborted with an abrupt sob, and he releases his grip on the sink in favor of dropping to the floor. The tile of the wall is grounding as he presses his back against it. Stares down at his hands. They're not clean.

Ally and friend to who?

He hadn't been so bold as to believe Johnson or his crew were friends. They did work together though, and some of them seemed fond enough of him. They might have fit the definition of allies.

He had thought...He had thought the old woman down the hall was a friend. If this is the fate he brings upon his friends, he doesn't think he ought to be one.

He thinks of a box. Seven by two and six feet under.

He wonders what sort of a box they'll put her in.

With a real knock on the door, and a muffled call of, "You okay in there?" comes the realization that he's been here for too long. He can't stay in one place if he wants to outrun everyone looking for him. If he wants to avoid attention.

He doesn't answer. A stranger will go away if he doesn't answer.

It takes another moment for him to steady his breath, but when he does he gets back to his feet. Grabs the backpack he'd abandoned from back up off the floor. Inside of it are all of what remains of his worldly possessions; the books, the plan, the red hoodie, and all of about five dollars in cash.

His only interest right now is in the hoodie.

If the woman from the street earlier has called the police, it's best he not be wearing the same clothes she saw him in when they come looking.

He props the bag up on the sink. Remembers he has to untie the bandana from his arm before he can ditch the flannel. He doubts the old wound is still bleeding, but he's hesitant all the same. It aches when he gives it too much attention.

He steels himself with a huff of breath and pulls the bandana from his arm. Pulls the flannel off next and lets it drop to the tile at his feet.

The blood, he realizes, has dried to the fabric of his t-shirt sleeve, causing the fabric to cling to his skin like an adhesive. It's stiff and uncomfortable and although he's alone he still tries to suppress the wince of pain at prying the fabric away.

His arm is swollen and faintly red around the old wound. And he doesn't remember any other cuts he's had healing this way, but then, none of his other injuries have been caused by bullets. Maybe this is normal for those. Either way, he rinses the bandana in the sink, squeezes the water from it as best he can, and reties it in place.

After that he pulls the hoodie on, uncomfortably more aware of the ache in his shoulder.

He throws the flannel in the trash, shoulders his backpack and, with one last glance down at the sink to ensure he hasn't left any evidence there, he slips out of the bathroom.

Where exactly he plans on going to from here, he doesn't know.

He still has to decide if Jason Todd is worth staying in the city for. It's his desperation for discovering that person, after all, that got the old woman down the hall killed. It's Jason Todd that's brought him all the other hurt he carries too.

It seems like the universe is telling him to just do what he's already done and forget Jason Todd.

Even despite this, he still feels that faint pull. The tether tying him here.

He doesn't know whether he should ignore it or not. Whether a life outside of this place might very well be worse.

What he does know is that before he can leave, if he does indeed plan to, he must first do one thing. He has to finish what he started. He has to stop Johnson and his crew from hurting anyone else.

How he's going to do that at all is a whole different question.


End file.
